Friday, November 5, 2010

Quick Chicken Thai


Sometimes you want to get dinner on the table fast and that's when I turn to Trader Joe's delicious sauce in a bottle! I had some leftover cooked chicken breasts, a few veggies in the drawer and rice in the pantry.

1 large cooked chicken breast, cut into small chunks
¼ of an onion, diced
1 carrot, sliced
some celery sliced
jasmine rice—rinse the rice and throw in a rice cooker if you have one
1 jar TJ's Thai Yellow Curry Sauce
Cilantro, chopped

Sauté the onion, carrot, and celery in some olive oil in medium size skillet, add the chicken and the sauce and warm through-top with chopped cilantro.  Serve over rice—easy peasy!


6 comments:

  1. I LOVE LOVE LOVE TJ's! Your blog makes me so happy :) Thanks for sharing!

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  2. I am so happy someone is even reading it! Glad it makes you happy :-)

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  3. Hi, I'm Sam, a friend of your son's. First off, all of your food is awesome. Next time you're in San Diego, tell Adam to give me a call!!

    But I had a question, do you know of any good chicken satay marinade? My wife and I bought this 'peanut satay marinade' from Trader Joe's the other day, but it wasn't very good. I guess we're looking for that authentic sweet and savory satay flavor. Any original recipes would be stellar!

    -Sam

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  4. For traditional satay (from Malaysia) there are 2 parts. One is the marinade for the meat and the other the satay sauce. I haven't had any experience with a peanut satay sauce that doubles as a marinade. Basically, the meat is marinated with spices for some flavor, but the sweet and savory after taste usually comes from the satay sauce that you dip the meat skewers in.

    I don't have a family recipe but found this one which looks pretty tasty and authentic (Malaysian flavor) but it is alot of work and some ingredients may be hard to find but if you go to 99 Ranch or other Asian grocery stores, you should be able to find them:
    http://www.malaysianfood.net/recipes/recipesatay.htm

    This one I found is similar but Thai style:
    http://thaifood.about.com/od/thairecipes/r/thaichickensate.htm
    http://www.templeofthai.com/food/one_click_cooking/satay-9100000343.php

    If you are looking for something a little simpler, I have a recipe book called "The Wok Bible" and this is a recipe for Satay Prawns from Indonesia but you can substitute the shrimp with beef or chicken.

    Ingredients:
    1 lb king prawns (jumbo shrimp)
    1 1/2 tbsp veg oil

    For peanut sauce:
    1 1/2 tbsp veg oil
    1 tbsp chopped garlic
    1 small onion, chopped
    3-4 fresh red chillies, seeded and chopped
    3 kaffir lime leaves
    1 lemongrass stalk, bruised and chopped
    1 tsp medium curry paste
    1 cup coconut milk
    1/2 inch piece cinnamon stick
    1/3 cup crunchy peanut butter
    3 tbsp tamarind juice made by mixing tamarind paste with warm water
    2 tbsp Thai fish sauce
    2 tbsp palm sugar or light brown sugar
    juice of 1/2 a lemon

    -Prep prawns (leave tails on but take off heads and de-vein wash and pat dry) set aside
    -Make peanut sauce
    -Heat half of the oil in wok add garlic and onion and cool over med heat stirring for 3-4 min until softened but not brown.
    -Add chillies, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass and curry paste. Stir well and cook for 2-3 min.
    -Stir in coconut milk, cinnamon stick, peanut butter, tamarind juice, fish sauce, sugar and lemon juice. Cook until well blended.
    -Bring to boil then reduce to low and simmer for 15-20 min until sauce thickens. Stir to prevent sauce from sticking to bottom of wok/pan.
    -Shallow fry the prawns until they turn pink. Thread prawns onto skewers and cook under hot grill (broiler) for 2 min on each side.
    -Remove cinnamon stick and discard.
    -Serve prawns with satay sauce.

    You can use the sauce and serve it with pork, chicken or beef. Cut meat into long thin strips and stir-fry in hot oil until golden brown and cooked through. Then stir in the sauce and serve.

    If you marinade the meat with the peanut sauce, you lose a lot of the flavor during the cooking process. If you are looking for the sweet and savory peanut taste, best to cook whatever meat you want (without marinade will be easier but of course the taste would be more authentic if you marinade the meat) then use the satay sauce to get the flavor you are looking for. You can of course tweak the satay sauce if you like it a little more salty, add more fish sauce or if you want it spicy add red chillies, sweeter add more palm sugar, etc..

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  5. Dear Sam,

    As you can see I put Sacha on the satay case as she is the expert for sure! Thanks for sending all that great info, Sacha--you are the best!

    Happy that you look at my little blog :-)

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  6. Wow, that sounds really good. I'll try that marinade recipe, thanks Sacha!

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