Satay Chicken in Peanut Sauce

The sauce is used both for marinating the chicken prior to cooling and as a dip for the skewered, cooked chicken. The following amounts make enough sauce to marinate and serve as a dip for about 4 lbs of boneless, well-trimmed chicken breasts. This makes about 30 skewers of chicken pieces.

Except for the grinding of the almonds, the sauce can be made in about 4-5 minutes. It does take about a half hour to cut and skewer about 30 pieces of chicken. You can marinade the cut, skewered chicken pieces overnight in a refrigerator for as little as 2 hours (I usually leave them overnight for convenience). Grilling time on hot coals takes only a few minutes. I usually grill about 10 skewers at a time, turning them in groups of five. Sometimes the sauce that drips off of the chicken onto the coals will catch fire. Hey, that’s part of the fun.

The SAUCE RECIPE (for about 30 skewers of chicken)

4 cups of diced, roasted almonds (starting with diced almonds makes the grinding easier)

1 cup of soy sauce (I think this makes the sauce a little too salty, so you might want to use a little less soy sauce. If you do, the final sauce might be a little thicker, which is OK)

1 cup chicken broth (I spooned off the fat that floats to the top)

8 tablespoons almond oil (you could probably use a cheaper peanut oil)

8 tablespoons lemon juice

8 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon garlic powder (I usually add a little more to give the sauce more “kick”)

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (be sure to use a teaspoon portion; I sometime forget since all of the other stuff is in tablespoons)

Grind the almonds in a blender or food processor until fine. You will probably have to grind about one cup at a time so that the blender blade does not get plugged up (the ground almonds will cake up as the almond oil is released during grinding – I usually have to open the blender and scrape the almonds with a spatula).

Put the 4 cups of ground almonds in a mixing bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Taste with your fingertip (actually, put your fingertip in your mouth and use your tongue to taste the sauce). The sauce has a delightful mix of sweet, spicy and ginger taste. It is not as hot as you might think it would be (see the next paragraph if you like it more spicy).

I usually mix in about 1 teaspoon of a Malaysian “curry” powder. I really don’t know how much this affects the overall taste of the sauce. If you can’t get a Malaysian curry powder, you can use any Indian curry powder mix.

The sauce has a thin consistency, but should not be “watery” The ground almonds give the sauce a slight thickness. You may want to remix the sauce occasionally when using it as a dip for the chicken, since the ingredients do not remain completely mixed if left standing for a long time.

Preparing the chicken

Cut the chicken into strips of about ¾” wide by about 4-5 inches long (essentially the length of a standard chicken breast). The cut pieces can the be rather easily skewered lengthwise onto long, bamboo skewers. Be sure to soak the wooden skewers in water for a long time so they will not catch on fire when put on a grill. Each piece of chicken should be slightly “scrunched” at the tip of the skewer. Sometimes a piece of chicken will slip off a skewer. I suggest that you say #%#&*@(&!!! And put it back on.

Pour the finished sauce into a tall, narrow rectangular (about 5” x 5”) plastic container. The sauce should be deep enough so that you can submerge each piece of skewered chicken completely in the sauce. I use a container into which I can often fit all 30 skewers of chicken. Marinate the chicken for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator.

When you take out the skewered, marinated chicken pieces and put them on a plate to carry out to the grill, a lot of marinade sauce will drip off the thicken. Not to worry!! The “excess” sauce can be added to the remaining portion as the dip.

You can turn the chicken once or twice during cooking. Some of the sugar in the sauce might burn to black, but I found this actually added one more distinct flavor to the chicken.

You can eat the grilled chicken without dipping into the sauce if you want to. If you don’t completely “incinerate” it while grilling, the “grilled” marinade gives the chicken itself an excellent flavor and aroma.

The hot, grilled chicken can be dipped immediately into the sauce, or can be cooled and then dipped. Either way is fine.

I did not cook the sauce. Some persons may be concerned abut bacterial contamination from raw chicken while marinading. If the chicken is clean and handled with clean hands and utensils, I don’t think “cooking” the sauce is necessary.