SpiderFarmer

I mentioned this recipe on my twitter feed, and a couple of people asked for the recipe, so here it is: Chicken Satay so easy your 7 year old can do a lot of it.

It’s important to note here that we deviated from the traditional Thai recipe and methodology. This is a kid-friendly recipe, which dramatically cuts down on the “hot” and ramps up the peanut. Kids have so many more tastebuds than adults that they taste things more dramatically. Also, traditionally, the chicken is skewered and grilled, with the sauce served on the side, whereas I pan sauteed everything in one pan. We served it on a bed of jasmine rice, which complimented it very nicely.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken (we used breasts, traditional recipe uses thigh)
• 1/2 tsp hot chili powder (more or less to taste)
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tbsp veggie oil
• 1 sweet onion (we used purple)
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 4 tbsp extra crunchy peanut butter
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp cumin (ground)
• 1 tsp coriander (ground)
• 5 tbsp water
• (fresh lemongrass if you’ve got it…but don’t kill yourself trying to find it if you don’t live near an Asian market.)

Directions:

(If making rice; start it first, it’ll take longer than the rest of the prep.)

Dice your onions, and garlic, then cut your chicken into 1 or 2″ cubes.  (For sanitary reasons, do the chicken last.)

Heat your oil (I used olive) and sweat the onions and garlic.  (Don’t get them brown (caramelized), just soften them up. Remove them with a slotted spoon, and toss in your chicken to brown, stirring as needed to keep them from sticking or burning.

While the chicken is cooking, combine everything else and wisk until smooth.

When the chicken is fully cooked, reduce heat to a simmer.  Add onion mix back to the pan.  Pour on the sauce, heat until bubbly and slightly reduced.

Serve, and sprinkle with chopped fresh lemongrass (if available).

Voilà, you are done! Easy Americanized Chicken Satay.

So, I’ve been working on some new recipes, trying to find the perfect thing for dessert for a big party.  Something that goes with the Sumatra Caviar.  However, the cookies, while wonderful, aren’t the texture I needed.  That said, these are some pretty amazing cookies, so I thought I’d share the recipe.

Ingredients and Preparation instructions behind the cut.

Read more…

Today’s bread experiment will be mini-baguettes.  I’ll also be making a fresh pea, garden mint and leek soup.  I’m crossing my fingers that the flavor profile will do what I expect it to do.  I’ll be using the baguettes to make a montrachet and roasted red bell pepper and basil sandwiches to go with the soup.  Recipes and pics to follow, if it works.

Cheesecake with Bing Cherry Sauce

The store had bing cherries on sale, and we brought a couple pounds home, only to find that they needed to be used asap.

So…what better use for cherries than cheesecake! Everyone loves a good cheesecake. Heck, folks love a bad cheesecake, but a good one is even better.

When making cheesecake, I use a 7″ x 4″ inch spring-form pan, because I prefer fluffy tall cheesecake, rather than dense, short cheesecake. But this recipe can be used in a 9″ x 2″ pie pan just as easily.

Preheat oven to 350

Crust:

• 1 1/2 cups graham crackers
• 6 tablespoons melted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)

Melt butter, stir together with dry ingredients and extract, press into bottom of spring form, or over entire pie shell or cake form if you prefer lots of crust. (I use about half this amount, because I don’t like a lot of crust, just enough to keep the filling from leaking out of the spring-form pan.)

Filling:

• 2 eggs
• 1 lb cream cheese (not the whipped kind), softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
• lemon zest to taste

Cream eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla together.  Add cream cheese and beat until smooth.  Set your mixer to medium, and whip the ingredients for 3 minutes.

Baking:

• For the tall spring-form pan, bake for about 40 minutes or until filling is set and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. For a 9″ pie pan, check at 20 minutes, and then every 5 minutes until set.

• In a springform pan, while the cake is still warm, run a cool, clean knife around the inside perimeter of the pan, so that when the cake cools and contracts, it doesn’t crack.

• Cool to room temp, then refrigerate.

At serving, top with cherry sauce – recipe below: (This is the same method you use to make pie filling, although you need to double or triple the recipe to fill a whole pie shell.)

Cherry Sauce:

• Pit and stem 4 cups of cherries.

In a deep saucepan, combine

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch or arrowroot
• dash of salt
• 1/3 cup water

Stir in cherries. Cook and stir until thick and bubbly.

Cook and stir for 1-2 minutes more, then remove from heat, cover and let cool without stirring.

We followed a recipe from Alton Brown that we adapted a tiny bit, mostly because I didn’t have pretzel salt on hand. But the recipe was easy enough that Igor got to do a whole lot of the actual recipe.  He didn’t get to do the boiling part, and he didn’t get to put the trays in or out of the 450 degree oven, but other than that, he was able to do most of the recipe.  He’s turning into quite the little 6 year-old sous chef.