Daring Cooks' Challenge - Nut butters

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

This was my first Daring Cooks challenge and I'm quite happy with it. I would have liked to experiment more with different nut butters but illness has consumed many a weekend over the last month for me!

Feeling under the weather had me craving spicy food. With this in mind, I set out to make peanut butter and a spicy satay sauce.

Satay sauce

Peanut butter

200 gr unsalted peanuts

Satay sauce

5 shallots, roughly chopped

3 birds eye chillies, roughly chopped 

4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

1 stalk lemongrass (dry outer layers removed, use pale part only)

3 tsp tamarind paste

5 tbsp plus 2 tsp brown sugar

1 tsp salt

100 ml vegetable oil

500 ml water

1 tbsp walter

200 gr peanut butter

50 gr roasted unsalted peanuts, crushed

Step 1: Make the peanut butter

Pour the nuts into the bowl of a food processor. Grind the nuts in the processor until they form a paste or butter. 

The nuts first turn into powdery or grainy bits, then start to clump and pull away from the side of the bowl, and finally form a paste or butter. The total time required depends on the fat and moisture content of the nuts; grinding time will vary from roughly 1 to 4 minutes. Set aside until needed.

Step 2: Make the spice paste

Roughly chop the lemongrass, chillies and garlic. Place in a mortar and pestle and pound for a few minutes to break down the fibres in the lemongrass.

Place the shallots and the lemongrass mixture into a food processor and blitz to form a fine paste.

Note: If the paste doesn't seem to be moving add half a tablespoon water but no more as this will water the sauce down too much and spit excessively when poured into the oil to cook. You do need a decent mini food processor for this (not a blender as this requires additional liquid to make the mixture move) job as a large one.

Step 3: Cook the spice paste

Heat oil in a heavy based saucepan or wok till medium heat and pour paste in. Stir fry, continuing to make sure bottom isn't catching till there is very little steam rising from the sauce and you can definitely see it
caramelising and smell it getting fragrant.

Step 4: Making the satay
Add peanut butter, crushed peanuts, tamarind, lime, sugar, only one teaspoon of salt (add to taste after adding saltedpeanuts). Stir to combine.

Add the water and bring to boil. Remove from heat and set aside till required. 

You can make this a couple days ahead of time and keep in a glass jar in the fridge and then reheat to serve.

Serving suggetions

This recipe is delicious but, be warned, it makes an absolute truckload of sauce! We have used it for chicken skewers and a satay and rice noodle stir fry.

For the skewers

Step 1: Marinate the meat
Marinate 500 gr of diced chicken thigh meat in some of the satay sauce overnight or for at least an hour. Unfortunately, I didn't measure how much I used. A good rule of thumb is add as much as it takes to coat all of the meat in the sauce.

Step 2: Thread and cook the skewers
If you are using bamboo skewers, soak them in water for at least half an hour. This will prevent them from burning. Thread the meat onto the skewers and cook on a low to medium heated BBQ for about 20 minutes, turning once.

Note: we have a Webber. When cooking the chicken skewers, we heat it to 150 degrees and cooked them with the lid closed.

Step 3: Serving
Reheat some of the extra satay sauce to serve over the skewers. When you skewers are cooked through, smother with satay sauce and enjoy!

For the rice noodle stirfry

Serves 6

Once again I didnt measure how much sauce I used! At a guess it would have been about 375 gr of sauce and about 100gr coconut cream.

Ingredients
1 packet of your favourite rice noodles (I used Bamboo Pot), softened according to packet directions
300 gr chicken, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
1.5 cm ginger, grated
600 gr vegetables (I used brocolli, capsicum, carrot, zucchini, water chestnuts and bamboo shoots)
Satay sauce
Coconut cream

Place the noodles in a large heatproof bowl. Cover with boiling water. Set aside for 5 minutes or until tender. Drain.

Heat a small amount of oil in a wok over medium-high heat. Add the chicken, garlic and ginger and stir-fry for 2 minutes or until brown. Transfer to a bowl.

Heat another small amount of oil in the wok over medium-high heat. Add the vegetables and stir-fry for 4 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked to your liking. Add the satay sauce and coconut cream. Cook for a further minute. Transfer to a bowl.

Add the softened noodles to the wok. Cook for two minutes tossing to ensure they do not burn. Return the meat and vegetables to the wok. Toss until well combined and heated through. If your dish is a little dry or the flavour is not strong enough add more satay sauce or coconut milk.