Chinese Style Satay Chicken

Submitted by blindlemon

"This is a recipe I developed myself after having various "not quite satisfactory" satay chicken dishes in Chinese restaurants. I found they were either too peanutty, not hot enough, bland or in some other way not quite right. So after a few experiments I ended up with this. Enjoy!"

 

• Ready In: 37mins
• Ingredients: 15
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• 4 skinless chicken breasts, and cubed
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 large onion
• 1 cup dry roasted peanuts
• 3 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 4 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 1 -2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (lazy) or 2 -3 fresh red chilies, chopped
• 1⁄2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1⁄2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons salt
• 4 tablespoons mushroom soy sauce or 4 tablespoons mushroom ketchup
• 1 teaspoon cornflour
• 300 ml hot water
• peanut oil
• sesame oil

directions

1. Preparation: Chop/grind half the peanuts in a blender to a powder.
2. Roughly chop or crush the rest.
3. Roughly chop the green pepper and finely chop the onion.
4. Put the chicken into a bowl, pour over 1 tbs of sesame oil and stir.
5. Add 1 tsp salt, peanuts, crushed chilli and black pepper and mix with 2 tbs of mushroom soy sauce, and 1 tbs of groundnut oil.
6. Put aside to marinate for at least 15 minutes.
7. Put the cider vinegar, 2 tbs mushroom soy, tomato puree, brown pepper, ½ tsp salt into a mixing jug.
8. Mix the cornflour with a little cold water and add half of this to the sauce.
9. Cooking: Heat some groundnut oil in a wok to a fairly high heat (not quite smoking).
10. Add the chilli powder and very quickly the finely chopped onion.
11. (If you don't add the onion quickly enough the chilli powder will burn and spoil the recipe!) Fry until the onion is very soft and almost starting to caramelize.
12. Add some more groundnut oil to the wok and allow to heat.
13. Add the green pepper, increase the heat and stirfry for 1 minute.
14. Add a little more oil and then add the chicken mixture.
15. Stirfry for two minutes or until the chicken is well sealed.
16. Add the hot water to the sauce in the mixing jug and pour into the wok.
17. Cook for a further 2 minutes or until the chicken is firm.
18. Adjust the thickness of the sauce to taste with more cornflour or hot water and turn out into a warmed serving bowl.
19. Finally, drizzle a little more sesame oil over and fold in.