Your Best Peanut Sauce

[Jessica]

My DH loves shrimp with spicy peanut sauce and I plan to make that for his birthday next week. What do you think is the zippiest, skippiest, all-around best peanut sauce? If it is a CL recipe, I have all of them from Jan. 1998-present.
Thanks.

[sneezles]

When I lived in Singapore we use to love to eat Satay and the sauce is a peanut sauce. I have two recipes one is Malay and the other is Nonya. I will give you the Nonya one because it is a lot less complicated. Is has two parts, in the first one it calls for making coconut milk (I use low-fat canned instead). The Rempah can be done in the blender or processor, although my neighbors did it by hand every day(Note: add the ingredients for the rempah as listed.

Nonya Satay Sauce

Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking: 25 minutes

1/2 coconut, grated
2 cups water (I use 2 cups canned coconut milk)
1/2 pineapple (optional)
2/3 cup cooking oil
3 tbs sugar
3/4 tbs salt
3 tbs crunchy peanut butter
3/4 cup ground roasted peanuts

Rempah

15-20 dried chilies or 2 tbs ground chili powder
20 shallots
1 tbs ground coriander
2 stalks lemon grass
1 tbs dried shrimp paste

Add to blender or processor in order listed and pulse until well ground (should barely be able to see pieces of shallot).

If making coconut milk: Mix grated coconut with the water. Squeeze coconut and then strain to get milk.

Quarter pinapple lengthwise. Cut away hard core. Grate finely. Refrigerate until later.

Heat oil in pot (the best pot is a clay pot barring that use a wok but watch closely so not to burn ingredients) and fry rempah till fragrant. Add coconut milk (a bit at a time), then add sugar, salt, and crunchy peanut butter.

Stir for 7 minutes til oil floats to the top of mixture. If it is too thick, add boiling water, a tbs at a time. Remove from heat and add ground peanuts.

Serve in individual bowls and garnish with grated pineapple.



[This message has been edited by sneezles (edited 06-12-2001).]

[Laura]

When I get home I will post a CL recipe (or let you know what issue I got it from) for a recipe called vermicelli stir fry with peanut sauce. I like it better than the "peanutty noodles" because it uses hot chili oil to give the spice a kick. It is very simple and the recipe calls for chicken but I am sure you could use shrimp.

[cindyluwho]

Do you have a recipe without coconut, coconut milk, shrimp, and coriander? I don't like the taste of these things. Do you think that substituting regular milk would work?

[Peeps]

I think the best peanut sauce is from the Spicy Soba Noodles With Chicken in Peanut Sauce recipe from Sept. 2000. I don't like it spicy so I omit whatever it is that makes it spicy (I forget, I don't have the recipe in front of me - its chili paste or something like that probably) but you could follow the recipe and make it as spicy as you'd like. I make this with tofu instead of chicken and its such a great, easy sauce you could easily use it for other things.

[Laura]

There is a recipe for peanut sauce on the recipe search if you look under Asian cuisine. The recipe I have is from May 97 and is not in the recipe search and since I copied it into my cookbook I don't have the nutritional information. It may not be what you are looking for but it is a very simple and good recipe. I substitute carrots for snow peas because my kids like them better and they are cheaper and we always have them on hand.

Vermicelli stir fry with peanut sauce
8oz cooked vermicelli
1 1/2 tsp. dark sesame oil
1 1/2 cubed chicken breast
1/3 c. thinly sliced green onions
1 1/2 tsp. chili oil
2 c. snow peas
3 cloves garlic minced
1/2 c. low salt chicken broth
3 Tbsp. low sodium soy sauce
2 Tbsp. reduced fat peanut butter
2 Tbsp. chopped dry roasted peanuts

1. Cook vermicelli according to directions , drain well set aside.
2. Heat sesame oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add chicken and green onion, stir frequently until done. Remove from skillet, set aside and keep warm.
3. Heat chili oil in skillet over medium high heat. Add snow peas, garlic and saute for 3 minutes. Combine broth, soy sauce and peanut butter and stir well with a whisk. Add to skillet, cook 2 minutes (I cook it longer), stir frequently. Add chicken mixture and cook for one minute. Remove from heat.
4. Combine pasta and chicken mixture, toss well. Divide evenly among 4 shallow bowls. Top each with 1 1/2 tsp. chopped peanuts.

[sneezles]

Cindy,
Do you have The Complete Cooking Light Cookbook? It has about 4 recipes wit peanut sauce that don't use any of the ingredients you listed. If not I can post a couple for you.

[valeriek]

I second Peeps with the spicy soba noodles with peanut sauce recipe. I do keep the spicy items in there (love spice). This is a really good sauce.

[Jewel]

Actually, I like the one from Fettucine with Tofu and Finger-Licking Peanut Sauce! I forgot which issue. In our opinion it had the perfect balance between peanutty and spicy. However, true to form, I spiced it up a bit more! I made that recipe with chicken in place of the tofu, and we were amazed. A definite finger-licker! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif