Satay Chicken Skewers

I did it! I finally tried one of my new recipes that I have had planned for weeks! Super simple satay chicken skewers. These were adapted from the Woman's Weekly Five Day Diet recipe book. I love the idea of this book. It is full of delicious looking, fresh, simple food and allows you to have your weekends free to eat whatever you want. My only (personal) problem is that while each recipe has the nutritional information the days don't seem to stick to a calorie intake amount. This is all personal preference though, I find I get better results if I set myself a calorie goal. So I took what I felt would work for me from the book and adapted it to fit. I often find that calorie controlled recipes (Woman's Weekly, Michelle Bridges, etc) are lacking in a variety of vegetables as part of the meal so I often bulk them out with extras because I love veggies (and I'm not going to beat myself up for going over my goal with veggies).

So the first recipe I decided to try was the satay chicken skewers. They sounded tasty and super easy. And they didn't disappoint. I tried the pickled carrot and cucumber but found it a bit lacking only having the two types of vegetables and will probably have a salad next time. I also cheated and used 90 second rice, which I guess is only really cheating on the cooking time, but I hate cooking rice so I loved this. I was just cooking for myself tonight so I also appreciated that the recipe is very simple to halve. Add a glass of white wine and I was very happy.

My hints/tips this week are:
 Soak the skewers in water for about 30 minutes before you want to use them. It makes it easier to skewer the meat and stops them from burning when you are cooking.
While you can use any type of peanut butter, I think crunchy would work best. I used smooth as that was what I had in the pantry but think the extra crunch would have been awesome.
This recipe serves two.
Enjoy!

Satay Chicken Skewers



Ingredients
1 tablespoon finely chopped lemon grass
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
250g chicken tenderloins (I cut mine into 6 strips of similar size)
2 tablespoon peanut butter
1 cup chicken stock
brown rice, to serve

Method

Combine lemongrass, cumin, coriander, turmeric and chicken tenderloins in a bowl. Allow to stand for 15 minutes.
Thread chicken onto skewers.
Cook chicken in frying pan over medium-high heat until golden and cooked through.
Remove from pan and cover with foil to keep warm.
Add spices leftover from marinating chicken, peanut butter and stock to pan. Stir until combined and allow to simmer over a low-medium heat until the sauce thickens.
Serve with your choice of sides. Drizzle satay sauce over the top of the skewers.

I served my meal with brown rice and a simple pickled carrot and cucumber salad. To make the salad finely slice 200g carrot and 150g cucumber. Toss is 2 tablespoons of lime juice and 2 teaspoons of caster sugar. Allow to stand for 30 minutes. Drain off excess liquid and serve.