Chicken Satay Stir-Fry
Saturday, February 13th, 2010 11:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forchancookieFor days, I've been craving chicken satay like you wouldn't believe! Which is very funny, because I think I can safely say that I've only had it once in my entire life. When I was living with Deani and Summer, they ordered it and it was delicious! There's a Thai place here and I kept saying that I was going to go and I didn't. I mentioned going with mom and she told me to just make it myself. So I poked at Food Network and a Rachel Ray recipe popped up for a Chicken Satay Stir-Fry with Orange Scented Jasmine Rice. Sounded interesting and it had great reviews. A lot of them. Sounded promising. So with no one home and some chicken in the fridge waiting to be cooked, I decided to give it a go.
I was nervous about the rice, because I seem to suck at making rice. I always get super stick clumpy rice. I follow the directions and it never works properly. Plus the pot always seems to boil over and get starchy water everywhere x_x But this recipe called for Jasmine rice instead of the cheap stuff mom buys. My rice came out perfect and lovely! ♥ So, I'm going to blame my apparent lack of rice cooking ability on the ingredients.
And now I'm going to copy/pasta the recipe here with my adjustments because I like to keep my recipes in one place for easy reference XD
Chicken Satay Stir-Fry with Orange Scented Jasmine Rice
Ingredients
* 3 3/4 cups water
* 2 oranges, zested
* 2 cups jasmine rice, rinsed
* 2 tablespoons canola or safflower oil, 2 turns of the pan
* 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 pounds chicken breast tenders, 2 packages, sliced on an angle into bite-size pieces
* 3 cloves garlic, crushed
* 1 medium yellow skinned onion, sliced
* 1 cup shredded carrots, store bought, or 2 medium carrots cut into matchsticks
* 1 cup snow peas, a couple of handfuls
Satay sauce:
* 4 rounded tablespoonfuls chunky peanut butter
* 3 tablespoons dark soy, Tamari
* 3 tablespoons honey
* 1-inch ginger root, peeled and minced
* 1 clove garlic, crushed
* 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes **
* 1/2 orange, juiced
Directions
Heat water with orange zest to boiling. Add rice, return to boil, stir. Cover pot and reduce heat to simmer. Cook rice until tender, 18 minutes. Fluff with fork.
For stir-fry, heat a large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add chicken, garlic and onion, stir-fry 3 minutes. Add remaining veggies and stir-fry 5 minutes more. Heat all ingredients for sauce together in a small pot over low heat, stirring the sauce until all ingredients are combined. Transfer stir-fry to a large platter and pour sauce evenly over the chicken and vegetables. Serve stir-fry over rice.
Notes
Since I don't eat peppers, those got tossed out completely, as did the scallions. Unnecessary in my world. I also tossed the garnishes. That's fine for a dinner party, but for a casual meal? Nah. My tamari is very very salty, like ocean water salty! Avoid San-J Tamari Soy Sauce! It's waaaaay too salty. It really is like drinking ocean water x_x I followed the recipe for the sauce, which gave me a very salty sauce because of my salty tamari. I had to add the juice of a whole orange and more honey to even out the saltiness. I also added a little water to thin it out. So, watch the saltyness of your tamari! If you have a salty one, go once spoon at a time, let it mix in, taste it then add another if needed.
My rice turned out wonderful! I'm so happy! I think it was my favorite part. I'm easy to please. The sauce was super yummy. I had nice fresh snow peas that really snapped in my mouth. Overall, it was a very nice dish. I enjoyed the snap of my veggies more than the peanuts. I might use creamy peanut butter next time.
** Didn't have pepper flakes, but I'm sure a spicy kick would be nice :D
Anyway, as long as we're talking recipe adjustments, I'd like to point out this "review" of the recipe on the Food Network site:
Well, you didn't really make the fucking recipe did you?! Adding some cooked tofu and veggies to a jar of sauce is not following the recipe! I bet they used brown rice too. WTF! Why even bother to review the recipe if you clearly didn't make it! That's why I don't bother reviewing recipes on sites. I tend to tweak them and while they often come out wonderfully, a few tweaks too many and you're not really making that recipe, you're making something else. What's worse is, people tweak and then leave bad reviews. Maybe if you followed the freaking recipe, you wouldn't have screwed up!
I don't know why people bother to comment if they didn't put forth the proper effort. No, your opinion of some concoction you made similar to the recipe has no bearing on the recipe itself, so keep your two cents and put it in the bank. Save up until you have something relevant to add. Moron. -_-
I was nervous about the rice, because I seem to suck at making rice. I always get super stick clumpy rice. I follow the directions and it never works properly. Plus the pot always seems to boil over and get starchy water everywhere x_x But this recipe called for Jasmine rice instead of the cheap stuff mom buys. My rice came out perfect and lovely! ♥ So, I'm going to blame my apparent lack of rice cooking ability on the ingredients.
And now I'm going to copy/pasta the recipe here with my adjustments because I like to keep my recipes in one place for easy reference XD
Chicken Satay Stir-Fry with Orange Scented Jasmine Rice
Ingredients
* 3 3/4 cups water
* 2 oranges, zested
* 2 cups jasmine rice, rinsed
* 2 tablespoons canola or safflower oil, 2 turns of the pan
* 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 pounds chicken breast tenders, 2 packages, sliced on an angle into bite-size pieces
* 3 cloves garlic, crushed
* 1 medium yellow skinned onion, sliced
* 1 cup shredded carrots, store bought, or 2 medium carrots cut into matchsticks
* 1 cup snow peas, a couple of handfuls
Satay sauce:
* 4 rounded tablespoonfuls chunky peanut butter
* 3 tablespoons dark soy, Tamari
* 3 tablespoons honey
* 1-inch ginger root, peeled and minced
* 1 clove garlic, crushed
* 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes **
* 1/2 orange, juiced
Directions
Heat water with orange zest to boiling. Add rice, return to boil, stir. Cover pot and reduce heat to simmer. Cook rice until tender, 18 minutes. Fluff with fork.
For stir-fry, heat a large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add chicken, garlic and onion, stir-fry 3 minutes. Add remaining veggies and stir-fry 5 minutes more. Heat all ingredients for sauce together in a small pot over low heat, stirring the sauce until all ingredients are combined. Transfer stir-fry to a large platter and pour sauce evenly over the chicken and vegetables. Serve stir-fry over rice.
Notes
Since I don't eat peppers, those got tossed out completely, as did the scallions. Unnecessary in my world. I also tossed the garnishes. That's fine for a dinner party, but for a casual meal? Nah. My tamari is very very salty, like ocean water salty! Avoid San-J Tamari Soy Sauce! It's waaaaay too salty. It really is like drinking ocean water x_x I followed the recipe for the sauce, which gave me a very salty sauce because of my salty tamari. I had to add the juice of a whole orange and more honey to even out the saltiness. I also added a little water to thin it out. So, watch the saltyness of your tamari! If you have a salty one, go once spoon at a time, let it mix in, taste it then add another if needed.
My rice turned out wonderful! I'm so happy! I think it was my favorite part. I'm easy to please. The sauce was super yummy. I had nice fresh snow peas that really snapped in my mouth. Overall, it was a very nice dish. I enjoyed the snap of my veggies more than the peanuts. I might use creamy peanut butter next time.
** Didn't have pepper flakes, but I'm sure a spicy kick would be nice :D
Anyway, as long as we're talking recipe adjustments, I'd like to point out this "review" of the recipe on the Food Network site:
Substituted Trader Joe's satay sauce, and didn't use the orange zest in the rice (didn't have any oranges...); substituted... tofu for the chicken - came out great.
Well, you didn't really make the fucking recipe did you?! Adding some cooked tofu and veggies to a jar of sauce is not following the recipe! I bet they used brown rice too. WTF! Why even bother to review the recipe if you clearly didn't make it! That's why I don't bother reviewing recipes on sites. I tend to tweak them and while they often come out wonderfully, a few tweaks too many and you're not really making that recipe, you're making something else. What's worse is, people tweak and then leave bad reviews. Maybe if you followed the freaking recipe, you wouldn't have screwed up!
I don't know why people bother to comment if they didn't put forth the proper effort. No, your opinion of some concoction you made similar to the recipe has no bearing on the recipe itself, so keep your two cents and put it in the bank. Save up until you have something relevant to add. Moron. -_-
