So, it was another week of chicken ennui, combined with grilling weather. What to do, what to do...especially when one waits until mid-afternoon to contemplate this question, and all one's favorite grilled chicken recipes require several hours of marinating time, and that window is long gone. Hmmm. Perhaps one should pull out one's Barbecue Bible, by Steve Raichlen.
And that's what I did. Lo and behold, there was a recipe needing only one hour marinating: Malaysian Chicken Sates. Bonus: I love the Malaysian food at Peninsula Malaysian Restaurant, so I was doubly excited to make something Malaysian myself.
It's not a tough recipe, once you've been to the grocery store (I didn't have any lemongrass on hand--in fact, I've never bought lemongrass, so it took some wandering around the store before I found it sliced and canned in the Asian foods section--although he says you can use lemon peel instead).
Essentially you dump shallots, dry-roasted peanuts, sliced lemongrass (or lemon peel), chopped ginger, fresh lemon juice, soy sauce, and vegetable oil into a food processor or blender. Add several spices--namely, salt, pepper, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, and turmeric, and grind to a paste. Then you take your chicken--in my case, boneless-skinless chicken breasts--and cut them into pieces the size of your little finger (I used my undamaged little finger for measurement purposes). Plop the chicken in a bowl and stir in the paste until the chicken is thoroughly coated.
Pretty! Time for the chicken to marinate for an hour in the fridge.
Then Raichlen wants you to thread these chicken pieces onto bamboo skewers. His idea is that you stick one piece per skewer, which uses a lot of skewers, then wrap the ends of the skewers in tin foil. That sounded labor-intensive to me. So I soaked the skewers in cold water for about 20 minutes, and threaded multiple pieces of chicken on each one, leaving plenty of cooking space, and using no tin foil.
These grill up pretty quickly, since the chicken pieces are small. Due to my admirable bamboo-skewer-soaking skills, there were no bamboo-skewer-collapsing-in-flames incidents.
Yum.
OK--honestly, there were mixed feelings at the Knit Think dinner table about this. Teen 1 didn't like it at all. DH thought it was OK. However, Teen 2 and I both thought it was great. Flavorful, but not spicy. Tender. Juicy. In fact, that was Teen 1's only praise for it: "At least it wasn't all dried out the way that last chicken thing you made was, Mom."
So maybe next time, I make something more conventional for DH and Teen 1, and make these for Teen 2 and I. 'Cause I'd sure like to eat some more.
I just had dinner AND dessert and am now ready to eat again, even though it's 11 p.m., and I'd have to go to the store and buy ingredients and everything.
That's how good this recipe looks.
Posted by: Jocelyn | April 25, 2009 at 11:07 PM
It sounds good to me. Maybe you could just use a different marinade for the other family members.
Posted by: Carole | April 25, 2009 at 05:53 AM
Just got home from a very chilly Lacrosse game and that looks nice and warming....
Posted by: Guinifer | April 24, 2009 at 09:38 PM
I'd probably be in the conventional camp...but I would admire your fancy chicken from afar.
Posted by: Heather | April 24, 2009 at 09:20 PM
You can find fresh lemongrass by the shallots at Cub. Just peel off a few outer leaves to get to the core.
Looks pretty yummy to me! I haven't had chicken satays for a long time. A dipping sauce would be fun too.
Posted by: Crystal | April 24, 2009 at 09:48 AM
They look pretty tasty to me. I'm a little jealous of your barbecue weather ALL WEEK! It's finally nice in Michigan, but since Sunday, the weather has been awful. Hopefully it'll stick around.
Posted by: rudee | April 24, 2009 at 09:28 AM
This is something you could mix and match easily--make that paste for you and Teen 2 and a different paste/marinade/sauce for DH and Teen 1. Just decrease the amounts.
I'm of the thought there's not much you can do to chicken to make it inedible. It looks good to me!
Posted by: bezzie | April 24, 2009 at 09:01 AM
They look yummy to me. I wonder if they would be better with fresh lemon grass...and where one would hunt that down around here. Asian Market?
Posted by: cursingmama | April 24, 2009 at 08:48 AM
Not dried out--that's some compliment. Looks great to me!
Posted by: Miss T | April 24, 2009 at 08:23 AM
They sound (and look tasty)!
Posted by: Chris | April 24, 2009 at 08:21 AM