Easy Thai Peanut Sauce

http://shesimmers.com/

I don't know about any of the rest of you, but I really love Thai peanut sauce. I like Thai food in general, but love any kind of peanut-y sauce.

So, I have been looking to find a recipe for peanut sauce like I've had before in Thai restaurants. I've tried a few, including one from Our Best Bites that was pretty good. However, I just found one that is the closest to restaurant quality that I have ever found. And, even better, it is SO EASY!

I found it on a blog called She Simmers Thai Home Cooking. It is SO yummy!

So, no pictures of my own. (I ate it too fast.) But, if you're interested in a great peanut sauce recipe, this is the one!

I have copied the recipe here, but if you want to know why this recipe works and what to use it on, go to her blog. I love her explanation of why her mom uses Thai red curry paste:

"If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the number of herbs and spices called for by several recipes for authentic Thai peanut sauce, here’s my mom’s recipe to the rescue. All the herbs and spices are found in commercial Thai red curry paste. No need to hunt down all 20 of them. Interestingly, Mom opted granulated sugar and vinegar as handy replacements for the traditional palm sugar and tamarind pulp respectively — all with no lethal effects. Our family has enjoyed the sauce made this way for years."

Lastly, she states that this peanut sauce recipe is a dipping sauce, not a peanut sauce that goes over noodles. However, that is exactly how I used it. I've also used it over tilapia (I know, fish again) and rice. It would be great over chicken, pork, whatever. Honestly, I could drink it.

Easy Thai Peanut Sauce Recipe: How to Make My Mom's Thai Satay Sauce

Prep time:

      8 minutes

 Cook time:

      5 minutes

 Total time:

      13 minutes

Serves: 3.5 cups

A word about this recipe: If you're looking for a Chinese-style peanut sauce that goes over noodles or Vietnamese-style peanut sauce that is served with fresh spring rolls, this is not it. You can use this sauce in that way, if desired. But this is a Thai satay sauce which is on the sweet side, has a flavor that is found in Thai curry (but is not supposed to be hot), and is served as a dipping sauce for Thai-style satay. If you're looking for the kind of peanut sauce that contains Chinese ingredients such as sesame oil, chili sauce, or hoisin sauce, this is not it. Thai-style satay sauce does not contain any of those ingredients and is not seasoned in the same way.

Author: shesimmers.com

Ingredients

• One 13.5-ounce can of full-fat, unsweetened coconut milk
• 2 ounces (approximately ¼ cup) of Thai red (mom’s preference and mine too) or Massaman curry paste (milder but flavorful)
• ¾ cup unsweetened (natural) creamy peanut butter (Do not use regular peanut butter or anything with added emulsifiers. It must be the type of natural peanut butter that comes with natural peanut oil on top and no sugar added. I often use Smucker's.)
• ½ tablespoon salt
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar or white vinegar (Do not use white wine, red wine, balsamic, or anything else — not even rice vinegar)
• ½ cup water

Instructions

1. Put everything into a medium heavy-bottomed pot and bring to a very gentle boil over medium heat, whisking constantly.
2. Let the mixture simmer for 3-5 minutes over low heat; be careful not to let the mixture scorch at the bottom of the pot.
3. Take the pot off the heat, let the sauce cool down to room temperature (or slightly warmer), and serve the sauce with satay or fried tofu.

Notes

This peanut sauce keeps in a glass container in the refrigerator for weeks. Refrigerated sauce will thicken up considerably. All you have to do is thin it out with a little bit of water to desired consistency, reheat, and serve. The sauce also freezes beautifully. I prefer Maesri red curry paste. But you can also use Mae Ploy red curry paste (it's hotter). A lot of people like to use massaman curry paste, and you can do that too. Originally, Mom used roasted peanuts, ground up in a mortar and pestle. For those who feel the use of natural peanut butter in this recipe is blasphemous, please feel free to go that route. But then, what is unsweetened, natural peanut butter if not roasted peanuts ground up into a paste? For those living in areas of the world where commercial natural peanut butter is not available, please grind up 12 ounces of roasted peanuts using whatever means most convenient for you. Then use the peanut paste in the same manner as peanut butter as directed.

Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole

Alicia warned me not to call this recipe a 'casserole', but I really couldn't think of anything else it could be. If it were on a fancy cooking show, it would be "deconstructed" chicken cordon bleu. But, try as I might, I guess I'm not that fancy. If anything, it's just me being lazy! I love CCB (fond memories of the MTC), but I don't like taking all that time to make it. And, so... this recipe!

So, before I get to the recipe, let me tell you that the measurements are probably pretty close, but that I didn't initially measure. So, this is a best guess.

Also, I disobeyed one of my cardinal rules... I used a can of cream of chicken soup. I really try to avoid doing that, but this recipe is really so much easier with it. So, to be fair, I will include a recipe for Mornay Sauce (often used on CCB) and a recipe for a Creamy Mustard Sauce. I kind of mixed both sauces together for my sauce in this recipe, plus that darn cream of chicken soup.

And, truth be told, I actually put this into a glass pan that was 8" x 11 ½". But, I think all of the ingredients would fit fine in a 9" x 13". I made it twice last week, and the second time, I used less mustard (ran out of it-- Jacob was glad), and I added a bit of milk (eh... ½ cup?) because I wanted it to be more saucy. Oh, and I forgot the dill. Oh well. And, both times I made it I used Swiss slices and cheddar slices because I had a Costco size thing of cheddar slices and wanted to use 'em. But, really, any cheese is fine.

And, I prefer to chunk up or slice up the chicken into strips because it's easier to dish it out in the end. 

And... lastly... any ham is fine. I've made this with deli slices, cut into strips, and also ham cubes.

Okay, so here goes.

Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole

1 10 oz can Cream of Chicken soup

¼ c Dijon mustard

½ c Sour cream

1 tsp dill

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

½ cup shredded Parmesan cheese

8+ slices Swiss cheese (cut into strips or shredded)

1 c sliced or cubed ham

4 uncooked chicken breasts cut into strips or chunks

½ cup Panko or Bread Crumbs

In medium bowl, mix together soup, mustard, sour cream, dill, onion powder, garlic, and Parmesan cheese. In greased 9”x13” pan, layer ingredients in this order from bottom to top:

½ of the soup mixture

chicken strips

ham

the other ½ of the soup mixture

cheese strips

Panko

Bake covered for about 40 minutes until chicken is no longer pink, and then uncovered for 10 minutes until the topping is toasted and cheese is bubbly. 

 

Uncooked Top View

Uncooked Layer View

Okay, so here is a recipe for Mornay Sauce, courtesy of Emeril Lagasse:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/mornay-sauce-recipe.html

Mornay Sauce

Yields 2 cups

Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk
Salt
Freshly ground white pepper
Pinch of nutmeg
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Directions

In a medium saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter. Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes. Whisk in the milk, 1/2 cup at a time. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Cook, stirring constantly for 4 to 6 minutes. Remove from the and whisk in the cheese. Serve hot.

 

 

And, here is a basic mustard sauce recipe, courtesy of some random blogger. If you choose to use this recipe, you might want to quadruple it to have enough sauce.

http://www.cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice.com/chicken-cordon-bleu-with-creamy-mustard-sauce/

 

Creamy Mustard Sauce

2 rounded tablespoons Dijon mustard

1/3 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup heavy cream

Whisk the mustard and chicken broth together in small skillet over medium - high heat. Bring it to a simmer and cook 1 minute stirring often. Slowly whisk in heavy cream and bring back to a simmer. Simmer until thickened, stirring often about 3 minutes.

Whisk the mustard and chicken broth together in small skillet over medium - high heat. Bring it to a simmer and cook 1 minute stirring often. Slowly whisk in heavy cream and bring back to a simmer. Simmer until thickened, stirring often about 3 minutes.
Read more at http://www.cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice.com/chicken-cordon-bleu-with-creamy-mustard-sauce/#xX4YzgMUCMQGMX7T.99

Whisk the mustard and chicken broth together in small skillet over medium - high heat. Bring it to a simmer and cook 1 minute stirring often. Slowly whisk in heavy cream and bring back to a simmer. Simmer until thickened, stirring often about 3 minutes.
Read more at http://www.cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice.com/chicken-cordon-bleu-with-creamy-mustard-sauce/#xX4YzgMUCMQGMX7T.99

Broccoli-Cheese Soup

Makes: Serves 6 to 8

If any of you haven't discovered America's Test Kitchen on PBS, you need to IMMEDIATELY. It is an amazing show. Plus it feeds my Food Network addiction since we got rid of cable. America's Test Kitchen reinvents recipes by testing every possible way of making it, resulting in the perfect recipe.  And every recipe we've tried is, in fact, perfect. Plus you learn technique, tips, tools, etc. It's far more informative than any show on Food Network... Shhhh.... Don't tell Food Network I said that. I still love them.

This recipe is not your standard broccoli cheese soup. As America's Test Kitchen says, they made the broccoli the star, not the cheese (of course, you can always slip in more cheese if you need your cheese fix...). We also found it was pretty forgiving. We used what we had on hand and didn't buy anything special, like salted butter and regular chicken stock. It may have been a bit on the salty side without the low sodium ingredients but Nando is a salt freak so it worked.

And a bonus for this recipe? It's healthy and low calorie! I think I'm the only one of us who's counting calories (the joys of sharing a blog with 3 awesomely skinny sisters) but we actually added extra spinach for good measure and it was still delicious.

And finally, you can freeze it for later. Hurray for frozen soups in the middle of winter!

Here's what America's Test Kitchen says about this recipe: my additional comments are in GREEN

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS: We were after a soup with pure broccoli flavor that wasn’t hiding behind the cream or the cheese. Overcooked broccoli has a sulfurous flavor, but we discovered when we cooked our broccoli beyond the point of just overcooked—for a full hour—those sulfur-containing compounds broke down, leaving behind intense, nutty broccoli. Its texture was fairly soft, but that was perfect for use in a soup. Adding baking soda to the pot sped up the process, shortening the broccoli’s cooking time to a mere 20 minutes. A little spinach lent bright green color to the soup without taking over the flavor. After adding cheddar and Parmesan, we had a soup so full of flavor and richness that it didn’t even need the cream.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter - we used salted but didn't add any salt
• 2 pounds broccoli, florets roughly chopped into 1-inch pieces, stems trimmed, peeled, and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
• 1 medium onion, roughly chopped (about 1 cup)
• 2 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through garlic press (about 2 teaspoons)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dry mustardpowder
• Pinch cayenne pepper
• Table salt
• 3–4 cups water
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth - we used regular salt and again didn't add salt
• 2 ounces baby spinach (2 loosely packed cups)
• 3 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (3/4 cup)
• 1 1/2 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated fine (about 3/4 cup), plus extra for serving - we used our obsession - pecorino romano from Costco. yum!
• Ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Heat butter in large Dutch oven (or regular soup pot. we're not fancy) over medium-high heat. When foaming subsides, add broccoli, onion, garlic, dry mustard, cayenne, and 1 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 6 minutes. Add 1 cup water and baking soda. Bring to simmer, cover, and cook until broccoli is very soft, about 20 minutes, stirring once during cooking.
2. Add broth and 2 cups water and increase heat to medium-high. When mixture begins to simmer, stir in spinach and cook until wilted, about 1 minute. Transfer half of soup to blender, add cheddar and Parmesan, and process until smooth, about 1 minute. Transfer soup to medium bowl and repeat with remaining soup. Return soup to Dutch oven, place over medium heat and bring to simmer. Adjust consistency of soup with up to 1 cup water (depending on how you like it. We didn't. We like it thick). Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve, passing extra Parmesan separately.

Source: http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/detail.php?docid=27401