Chicken satay with peanut sauce and coconut rice

June 27, 2014February 4, 2017Posted in Meat, RecipesTagged chicken, coconut, peanut, rice, satay, sauce, the spice trail10 Comments

It’s typical, isn’t it? I finally get around to posting a summer barbecue recipe and all of a sudden the gorgeous weather disappears, the grey clouds gather and a deluge of rain descends from the heavens. Blinking typical.

What else can you expect when it’s Glastonbury Festival? Even if it weren’t all over Twitter, radio and TV, we’d know it was Glasto time just by the sheer number of helicopters flying over our house taking the VIPs to the festival down the road in Pilton. We always give them a wave as we wonder who might be on board…

But I am ever the optimist and I’m sure the days of balmy sunshine will return to us soon. And this chicken satay is a dish we’ll making again on the barbie.

This was one of my favourite dishes when I went to Malaysia and Singapore as a child to stay with my Mum’s family. I thought the hawker stalls were just so exciting and loved the way the sticky rice came wrapped up in banana leaves. I can’t clam my version is at all authentic I’m afraid, and it isn’t easy to come by banana leaves in the middle of Somerset. It is ruddy tasty though, and I could easily polish off a whole bowlful of that peanut sauce on its own.

The chicken satay is packed full of spice and while it’s fine to mince the marinade ingredients in a food processor, I rather like doing it with a pestle and mortar to work out some of those pent-up tensions. It’s best to marinate the chicken overnight or at least for three to four hours.

Chicken satay with peanut sauce and coconut rice

Serves 4

For the satay chicken

500g chicken breasts, skinned
1 large onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 lemongrass stalk, trimmed and white part finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tbsp ground coriander
salt
pepper
demerara sugar
1 tsp fish sauce
½ chilli, deseeded and chopped
a little sunflower oil for brushing

For the peanut sauce

2 tbsp vegetable oil
½ onion, peeled and finely diced
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 tbsp crushed garlic
½ tsp ground ginger
5 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
1 tsp tamarind paste
1 tsp dark soy sauce
250ml coconut cream
50ml water

For the chicken satay

Slice the chicken into thin strips and place in a bowl.

Crush together the onion, garlic, lemongrass and ground spices using a pestle and mortar (or in a food processor) to create a rough paste. Add a little salt, sugar and pepper to taste. Stir in the fish sauce and chilli. Pour the paste onto to the chicken and mix well with your hands to thoroughly coat.

Cover with cling film and leave to marinate in the fridge overnight, or at least three to four hours.

Soak 16 bamboo skewers in water for around 30 minutes to stop them from burning on the barbecue later.

Carefully thread the marinated chicken onto the skewers.

When you are ready to cook, brush a little sunflower oil onto each satay skewer and then gently lay them onto the barbecue grill. (Or of course you can do this under the grill or in a griddle pan.)

Grill the chicken for about five minutes, turning frequently, until it has cooked through.

For the peanut sauce

Heat the oil in a saucepan and gently fry the onion, chilli and garlic for a few minutes until the onions are soft.

Add the ground ginger and peanut butter giving it all a good stir until the peanut butter starts to melt down. It should start to melt. Then add the tamarind paste and soy sauce and stir again. Next goes in the coconut cream and water. Cook and keep stirring for a few more minutes until everything is well incorporated.

Pour the peanut sauce into a bowl and serve warm alongside the chicken and rice.

For the coconut rice

400ml coconut milk
½ tsp ground ginger
salt to taste
1 bay leaf
1 lemongrass stalk
200g long grain rice

Place the coconut milk, ground ginger, salt, bay leaf, lemongrass stalk, and rice in a medium saucepan over a medium heat. Stir together and cover with a lid. Bring to a simmer and reduce heat. Continue to simmer very gently for around 20 minutes, until the rice is tender and has absorbed all the coconut milk. If it dries out before the rice is done, add a little water. When it’s cooked, fish out the bay leaf and lemongrass stalk – you don’t want anyone chowing down on either of those.

Serve the rice by packing it into a small, very lightly oiled bowl and turning it out onto a plate alongside the barbecued chicken satay and individual bowls of peanut sauce. I like to add a simple dressed salad to the plate too. Now that is properly finger-licking good.

As the spice mix for the chicken satay features cumin, I am entering it into this month’s Spice Trail challenge, where of course the theme this month is cumin.

I’m also entering it into June’s Family Foodies, hosted this month by Louisa at Eat Your Veg. The theme is Barbecues, Picnics and Outdoor Eating and I think these chicken satay fit the bill perfectly.

‘Count on us’ Thai green curry

February 22, 2014Posted in Meat, Recipes, ReviewsTagged 5:2, chicken, M&S, sauce, thai green curry12 Comments

Thai Curry-Recipe Card — Photo courtesy of M&S

It hasn’t been particularly healthy here on the blog as of late; rather a lot of chocolate and cake and pizza about. I swear that’s not an honest reflection of my family’s dining habits in recent weeks, but it is true that my new year’s resolutions of eating more healthily have slipped somewhat.

So when M&S got in touch to see if I’d like to review one of their new healthy eating recipes, it sounded like a rather good idea. M&S have put together four easy recipe cards for under-400 calorie meals, which means they are particularly suited to anyone on the 5:2 diet.

I opted to test drive the Thai green curry recipe, which uses a jar of count on us Thai green curry sauce. Back in the days before I used to cook much, only about nine years ago before the children came along, I wouldn’t have though twice about opening a jar of shop-bought sauce when I was making a curry. But not these days. I find most jars lack any decent flavour and are never nearly hot enough for my taste. And Thai green curry is right up there at the top of my favourite curries list. The best one I’ve had recently was at the Pan Asia restaurant in Bath, where the bling decor is as fresh and zingy as their dishes.

So M&S would have to turn out something pretty tasty to impress my husband and me.

But do you know what? It was actually pretty good. I was about to continue that sentence with for a sauce from a jar. But no, I stop there. It was pretty good, full stop. OK, so it wasn’t as hot as I’d have probably made it myself if I was starting from scratch, but I do tend to like things hotter than most and the chilli flakes scattered on top took care of that. We were very liberal. It also needed the fresh lime and coriander to create those tingles on the taste buds you’re looking for when you have a green curry. What I probably appreciated most though was how quick it was to make. We had it one evening after the children had gone to bed, and I really wasn’t in a cooking mood, and it took less than 20 minutes.

At just 385 calories per portion, it’s definitely a winner in my eyes. I’ve got my eye on their jalfrezi sauce to try out next.

Here’s the recipe or download the M&S recipe card as a PDF.

Thai green curry with chicken and vegetables

1 tsp sunflower oil or olive oil
250g skinless chicken breast (2 fillets), cut into strips
300g assorted vegetables, eg baby corn, sugar snap peas
1 small pepper, deseeded and finely sliced
350g jar M&S count on us Thai Green curry sauce
1tsp fish sauce
generous handful freshly chopped coriander
red chilli flakes & lime (to garnish)

Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan or wok and when very hot add the chicken. Stir-fry for 2-3 minutes or until the chicken is
lightly coloured. Remove to a plate.

Add your choice of vegetables, such as baby corn to the hot pan, stir-fry for 2-3 minutes before adding the more tender sugar snap peas and pepper; stir-frying for a further minute or two.

Stir in the count on us Thai Curry sauce. When bubbling, add back the chicken, heat through for 2-3 minute then stir in the fish
sauce and chopped coriander.

Serve with egg noodles. Garnish with chilli flakes and a wedge of lime.

Disclosure: M&S provided me with all the ingredients for this dish in return for trying out their recipe. All views expressed are completely my own and are 100% honest.

Roast vegetable sauce for pasta

January 21, 2014Posted in Recipes, VegetarianTagged butternut squash, carrot, celery, courgette, Family Foodies, pasta, red pepper, roast vegetables, sauce, vegetables, zucchini15 Comments

I have been cooking this sauce, or versions of it, since I was weaning my two girls onto solids. They are now five and eight and still enjoy it just as much, although the portion sizes are considerably bigger now. Back in the early days, they would eat the sauce on its own and as they grew older I started stirring it into penne or fusilli to make a delicious pasta sauce. They still love it this way, especially with a huge heap of grated cheese on top, along with a drizzle of olive oil.

It’s one of the easiest sauces in the world to make. All the ingredients are simply roasted in one pan and then blitzed in a food processor with some stock. I don’t even bother to peel the garlic.

It’s extremely adaptable too and you can experiment with whichever vegetables take your fancy – or whichever vegetables you might be trying to sneak past your unsuspecting fussy eater.

I generally cook up a big batch of this sauce and freeze it in individual portions; perfect for a quick tea after school when the kids have clubs to rush off to.

Roast vegetable sauce for pasta

450g tomatoes
1 butternut squash, chopped into large chunks
1 red pepper, cut into large chunks
1 red onion, peeled and cut into wedges
3 sticks of celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 courgettes (zucchini), chopped
3 garlic cloves
glug of olive oil
500ml vegetable stock (low salt)

Preheat the oven to 220°C / gas mark 7.

Place the tomatoes, chopped vegetables and garlic into a large roasting tray. Drizzle with olive oil and give it all a good mix to make sure everything is thoroughly covered. Roast in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes until the vegetables are tender and beginning to char a little.

Put the vegetables into a blender with the stock and blitz until smooth. Job done.

Simply stir into cooked pasta for an easy peasy supper.

Freeze the remainder of the sauce in individual portions. You should get around 12 portions out of it.

As this pasta sauce is an ideal way to introduce your children to vegetables and entice them to eat a few they might not be so keen on, I’m entering it into this month’s Family Foodies challenge, where the theme is ‘Hidden Goodies’.

May’s Recipes for Life challenge: cooking with rhubarb, lemon and spice

May 1, 2013May 28, 2013Posted in Competitions and challenges, Recipes, VegetarianTagged blog challenge, compote, lemon, recipe challenge, recipes for life, rhubarb, sauce, spice, swallow charity17 Comments

Take part in the Recipes for Life challenge and you could see your dish featured in SWALLOW’s new charity cookbook!

We are now well and truly into rhubarb season, as Sarah who works for SWALLOW knows only too well. She has a huge patch of rhubarb in her garden and she doesn’t know what to do with it. So this month we are using the Recipes for Life challenge to help Sarah out by providing her with lots of delicious ideas on how she can put her rhubarb to good use.

Of course, the rules of the Recipes for Life call for a trio of ingredients, and so we’re teaming the rhubarb with lemon and spice – ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, chilli, cardamom, star anise – whichever spices take your fancy and tickle your taste buds. All you have to do to enter the challenge is to combine these three ingredients to make a tasty, simple and wholesome dish and post it on your blog. Make sure any other ingredients you include are easy to come by.

We’re using Recipes for Life to come up with a stock of easy recipes for members of SWALLOW’s cookery club to make in their sessions. SWALLOW is a fab charity based in Midsomer Norton in South West England, supporting adults with learning disabilities to lead more independent lives. The challenge is running for six months and at the end, the best recipes will be included in SWALLOW’s new cookery book to help raise much-needed funds for the charity.

Recipes for Life: how to enter

Display the Recipes for Life badge (shown above) on your recipe post, and link back to this challenge post.
You may enter as many recipe links as you like, so long as they are based on the three main ingredients selected for this month and accompanied only by everyday items.
Send your recipe URL to me at vanesther-at-reescommunications-dot-co-dot-uk, including your own email address and the title of your recipe or post. The closing date this month is Tuesday 28 May 2013.
If you tweet your post, please mention #RecipesforLife, @BangerMashChat and@SWALLOWcharity in your tweet and we will retweet everyone we see.
Feel free to republish old recipe posts, but please add the information about this challenge and the Recipes for Life badge.
As entries come in, links to these will be added to this page and at the end of the month there will be a round-up of all entries received.
SWALLOW staff and members will choose their favourite recipe at the end of each month, and the winner will receive a small prize.
A selection of recipes entered each month will be featured in the SWALLOW cookbook to be published later this year, helping the charity to raise much-needed funds for its ongoing work.

As my first entry, here’s a very simple rhubarb compote. It’s lovely served with roast duck, pork or lamb, and I’m also rather partial to it in a big thick cheese sandwich.

Rhubarb compote

knob of butter
small onion, chopped
1 tsp chopped ginger
½ tsp mixed spice
150g rhubarb, chopped
handful of sultanas or raisins
2 tbsp apple juice
2 tbsp lemon juice

Melt the butter in a pan and gently cook the onion and ginger until soft and golden. Stir in the mixed spice and cook for a couple of minutes.

Add the rhubarb and dried fruit and mix well to coat the fruit in the spicy butter. Cook for a few minutes before adding the apple and lemon juice. Stir and allow to stew gently for around ten minutes until the rhubarb is soft and mushy but still holds its shape. Serve at room temperature.

May’s entries

Rhubarb, Ginger and Lemon Fool from Under The Blue Gum Tree
Rhubarb and Lemon Scones from The Garden Deli
Rhubarb, Lemon and a Spice from Fun as a Gran
Rhubarb and Vanilla Jam from Utterly Scrummy Food for Families
Rhubarb Crumble Muffins from Chez Foti
Spiced Rhubarb and Lemon Sorbet with Cinnamon Cookies from Bangers & Mash
Rhubarb Ripple Ice Cream with Hazelnut Oat Clusters from Elizabeth’s Kitchen
Rhubarb, Lemon and Ginger Friands from JibberJabberUK
Spiced Lemon & Rhubarb Cheesecake from Rich In Flavour
Spiced Rhubarb & Lemon Muffins from Farmersgirl Kitchen
Rhubarb Syllabub from Fun as a Gran
Lavender Poached Rhubarb with Ginger Custard Cream from How to Cook Good Food
Fennel Rhubarb Foolish from Edible Things
Rhubarb Ripple Ice Cream with Mini Spiced Lemon Cookies from The Crazy Kitchen
Pork and Rhubarb Curry with Lemon Pilau Rice from Spurs Cook
Moroccan Lamb & Rhubarb with Lemon & Coriander Cous Cous from The Crazy Kitchen
Rhubarb, Lemon and Ginger Cake from JibberJabberUK
Rhubarb and Custard Crumble Pizza from The Crazy Kitchen
Lemon and Rhubarb Pudding from The Crazy Kitchen
Cheese and Rhubarb Chutney Tart from The Crazy Kitchen
Rhubarb Ice Cream with Lemon Spiced Biscuits from The Grumbling Tummy
Poached Rhubarb Spaghetti from The Good Stuff
Rhubarb Cinnamon Cake from Bangers & Mash

Review: Amoy Special Selection Soy Sauce & Sticky Glazes

April 14, 2013April 14, 2013Posted in ReviewsTagged amoy, barbecue, Chinese, marinade, review, satay, sauce, soy, soy sauce, special selection, sticky glazeLeave a comment

We consume rather a lot of soy sauce in our house. Perhaps it’s down to the Chinese Malaysian ancestry. Ever since I was little, I’ve loved the stuff and I could probably survive on a diet of boiled white rice smothered in soy sauce. Just the thought of it now is making me hungry.

I usually buy huge bottles from the Chinese supermarket because we get through so much of it. So when Amoy asked if I’d like a complimentary bottle of their new ‘Special Selection’ soy sauce to try out, of course I had to say yes.

It’s actually very good, and I’m not just saying that because I got it free. I fully intend to buy some when we finish this bottle, which won’t be long, and I’d certainly recommend it.

According to Amoy, their Special Selection soy sauce is made from the finest extracts of soya beans and blended with sea salt to provide an intense and full-bodied flavour. They’re absolutely right about the full-bodied flavour – it’s deliciously deep and rich and very, very moreish. We’ve tried it with rice, noodles and stir-fried vegetables and the whole family has given it a thumbs up every time.

Amoy also sent me some of their Sticky Glaze sauces to try: peanut satay, Chinese barbecue and sweet soy.

While I don’t normally buy packet sauces, I was quite impressed with these, although they were all a little on the sweet side. That’s probably why they were so popular with the children. The glazes are an extremely speedy marinade for meat, fish and vegetables, so they’d be quite a useful ingredient to have in the cupboard when you’re short of time and need something quick and easy for dinner.

The children loved the peanut satay in particular, which we had with chicken, but they do usually love food of any description on a stick. It was supposed to have ‘a chilli twist’ but I couldn’t really detect any chilli in there. My favourite was the Chinese barbecue glaze, which I used on pork spare ribs. Sweet and sticky and finger-lickingly good, just as good ribs should be. I can see myself buying that one again in future. I wasn’t so taken with the sweet soy glaze though – I much prefer my own version I made at Chinese new year!

Disclosure: Amoy sent me a complimentary bottle of their new Special Selection Soy Sauce and the three Sticky Glazes for review purposes. No money exchanged hands.

Watercress and pistachio pesto

April 9, 2013November 26, 2014Posted in Recipes, VegetarianTagged cheese, Chez Foti, parmesan, pasta, pesto, pistachio, ricotta, sauce, spaghetti, watercress9 Comments

I was recently given a new hand mixer and so, naturally, the first thing I had to try it out on was homemade pesto.

Normally I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to pesto. I could eat basil and pine nut pesto every day and never tire of it. It brings back very fond memories of inter-railing around Europe with my best friend after our A-levels. The only food we could really cook in our basic hostel kitchens was pasta and pesto from a jar. Washed down with a cheap bottle of plonk, we couldn’t have been happier. And then we ate fresh pesto in Italy and we were happier still.

But as my husband isn’t much of a pesto fan, I have started to experiment with different variations. Wild garlic pesto was a big hit last year and I look forward to picking some again from the local hedgerows when spring finally decides to turn up here in Somerset.

One of my favourite food bloggers is Louisa at Chez Foti who happens to be a bit of a pesto aficionado. I love the look of her stilton, walnut and parsley pesto and will be trying it soon. In this same blog post Louisa helpfully listed a whole menu of ideas for anyone wanting to dabble in a little pesto experimentation.

One of her suggestions was watercress, which is a particular favourite ingredient of mine. And so I came up with this recipe for watercress and pistachio pesto. I thought it might be a little peppery for the children but that wasn’t an issue at all. They wolfed it down and came back for more. A definite success. Bear in mind that if you do add the Ricotta at the end, you’ll need to use the pesto within a couple of days. If you leave it out, the pesto will keep in a glass jar in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Watercress and pistachio pesto

Serves 6 to 8

80g watercress
1tsp rock salt
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
60g Parmesan, grated
60g shelled pistachio nuts
150 ml olive oil – the best quality you can afford
2 tbsp Ricotta cheese

In a blender, process the watercress, salt, and garlic until well chopped. Add the Parmesan, pistachio nuts and olive oil and blend until fairly smooth and creamy.

Scrape into a bowl and fold in the Ricotta cheese. Serve with pasta of your choice. Personally I always go for spaghetti with pesto.

If you have featured a pesto recipe on your blog, please feel free to include a URL in the comments below and I’ll be more than happy to link up to it!

I am entering this recipe in the #TuscanyNowCookOff. It might not be the most authentically Italian pesto, but it might possibly get through on creativity!