If it weren’t for the smoke…
…this dinner would have been perfect.
Living in Chicago for five years, it was natural that I would become a big fan of Thai food. It’s on practically every corner. My first Thai meals were with my husband, and he introduced me to chicken sate (or satay) and peanut sauce.
He’s quite the peanut-sauce magician himself, so I wasn’t all that sure of whether to even try my hand at it. But the recipe looked so darn tasty.
It was all going very well — the mixing of the spices, the marinating, the skewering of the tenders, the side dishes, all of it — until about two minutes into the broiling process when I smelled smoke and opened the oven door to a near disaster. Burned skewers! Now there was absolutely no mention in the recipe of burning skewers. Nor was there any mention of how to avoid burning skewers.
I freaked at first. Of course. That’s my style. But then, with Scott’s help, I deskewered the chicken and stuck it back in the oven. The dinner was saved expect for the tradition of removing the chicken from the skewers, which is highly overrated if you ask me. And the peanut sauce was abolutely lovely.
(Shot the photo without adjusting the ISO on my camera. Again! So there you have 1250 ISO chicken. Pretty, eh?)
Peanut sauce… absolutely the best thing about Thai food!
You can avoid burning the skewers if you soak them in water for about an hour before using them. 🙂
Patrick, you are oh, so right!
Eileen, hi! Good tip. My husband was aware of this small detail, and may have been slightly tempted to say, “Um, I could have told you that if you’d only asked.” Luckily he didn’t! Cook and learn, I say. 🙂
I’ve made some kickin’ satay in my time, but a HUGE flop of a pad thai because I didn’t chop everything up ahead of time. It moves SO fast and I got so behind and everything became glued together. Sigh. I took a Thai cooking class with an official Thai cook complete with shopping trip in Chinatown, and he gave us some great recipes — I’m happy to send along with you if you’d like.
As for the skewers – if you have tongs, why do the skewer thing? Not necessary in my humble opinion.
Alright, hand over the peanut sauce recipe! I am a peanut sauce FREAK! nad I have yet to find the perfect recipe so hand it ! HAND IT!!!!!