Peanut Sauce

I guess I should blog my peanut sauce recipe because it's pretty great. I've been making it forever based loosely on what I read on the internet and based on a type my mother makes. It's a lot of tasting and adjusting seasonings, though, so the amounts here aren't exact.

Ingredients

• 1/2c peanut butter
• 3tbsp soy sauce
• 1tbsp black vinegar
• .5 to 1tsp sriracha
• 1tbsp brown sugar
• 1c water
• 1.5tsp ginger (minced or ground. If you use dried, go for more like .5tsp)
• 1tbsp minced garlic

In a small sauce pan, add the peanut butter and water and cook over medium heat. Whisk together until it forms a sauce. You may need more water - you're looking for something SLIGHTLY thin, because it will cook down. It does an interesting thing where it thickens a lot more than you think it will once the peanut butter is melted.

Once it forms a sauce of the desired consistency, add all the other ingredients, then cook until it reaches the desired thickness. Taste frequently, and adjust the vinegar, soy sauce, and brown sugar as needed. Be careful with the sriracha - it's not that it's so spicy, it's just that a little goes a long way toward overpowering the flavors of the peanut sauce.

Thoughts: We made this recently to put on broccoli, but it goes well on just about anything. Add scallions or cilantro to taste.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Xinxim

Possibly one of the strangest recipes we've done so far.
Ingredients

• 1.5lbs of chicken thighs, cut into thick pieces
  
• 3 limes, juiced
  
• ~4 cloves garlic, crushed
  
• salt and pepper to taste
  
• 1/2lb pre-cooked shrimps (if not pre-cooked, just add them a little sooner. The original recipe called for raw, but we didn't have 'em)
  
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
  
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
  
• 2 large ripe tomatoes, seeded and chopped (why seeded? I don't know.)
  
• 1c chicken broth
  
• ~1/2c dried shrimp
  
• ~1/2c cashews
  
• ~1/2c toasted peanuts
  
• 1 lobe ginger, peeled and finely chopped
  
• 2tbsp palm oil
  
• 1 can coconut milk
  
• (optional) cilantro
  
• 2 spicy sausage links, cut thickly (chorizo would work, we just used "hot italian sausage" we found at the grocery)
  

Mix lime juice, garlic, salt, and pepper. Place chicken and sausage in one bowl and shrimp in another, and put about 1/3 of this mixture over the (non-dried) shrimp and the remaining 2/3 over the chicken and sausage. Stir to coat. Let marinate for 15 minutes. In the mean time, place the dried shrimp, cashews, and peanuts in a cuisinart and crush them down to a fine meal. In a pan, heat some oil with a high smoke point (peanut oil, for example). Put the chicken and sausage in and cook until they're more or less done. Set aside (back in the bowl of marinade, possibly).
In the same pan, add the green bell pepper and the onion and sautee until soft. Then add the tomatoes, chicken & sausage (and all the marinade they were sitting in), and the chicken stock. Let simmer on low for 30 minutes. Add the nuts/shrimp meal and the ginger. Let simmer for another 5 minutes. Then add everything else, stir well, and let simmer another 5-10 minutes. Serve.

Thoughts: Really great. We could use more soup liquid - more stock. The taste really matured after refrigerating a day (leftovers were really great). Dan felt it was a little greasy - maybe less or no palm oil next time. Also, we could chop the peanuts and cashews up a LITTLE more finely than we did. This made a LOT of soup - next time we could cut the recipe in half and still have enough leftovers for a week. Finally, skip seeding the tomatoes. Just use 1 can of chopped tomatoes. This recipe was really complicated, so anything to simplify it.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Latin American Peanut and Potato Soup

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp peanut oil
• 1 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• about 6 red potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1 can chopped tomatoes (about 7 oz)
• 1.25 cups of unsalted peanuts
• 6.25 cups of beef stock (or veg)
  
• salt and pepper
• fresh cilantro, chopped
• honey
• cayenne pepper

Heat the oil in a large heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook for about 5 minutes, until onion starts to soften.
Add the garlic, potatoes, pepper, and tomatoes. Stir well to coat everything evenly, then cover and cook for 5 minutes until softened.
Meanwhile, toast the peanuts by cooking them in a large dry frying pan over medium heat. Make sure they don't burn. Move them around often. You don't want burned peanuts.
Set a 1/4 cup of the toasted peanuts aside to use as a garnish. Put the rest in a food processor and grind them up. Add them to the vegetables.
When vegetables are done cooking, remove them from heat and transfer to a blender and blend until smooth.
Return mixture to the pot and stir in the beef stock. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Serve, garnished with the chopped cilantro and toasted peanuts.

Thoughts: This wasn't too difficult to make, and it was pretty delicious. I had the thought of adding some cayenne pepper, and Dan had the thought of adding honey. They make lovely additions to this dish, so by all means, add them both (probably just before serving). Also, I had the idea that buying fresh, in-the-shell peanuts would be a good idea because they would taste more fresh. This is probably not true, and they were a pain in the ass to shuck. So just go ahead and buy the canned ones (as long as they aren't salted! Christ!). We're having a little bit of difficulty coming to a consensus about the rating on this one. It was an unobjectionable soup, but it wasn't particularly striking. I would probably make it again.

Disaster Index: 1-2/10

Update!
only use 3c water,
4 cups worth of beef bouillon
about 2-3 tbsp honey (until you can JUST taste the sweetness)
juice of 1/3 to 1/2 a lemon
pinch of salt
pepper
cayenne to taste

Proceed as usual. About half way through the vegetables being cooked, throw HALF of them in a blender with the 3c of water. Blend smooth and re-add to the other vegetables with the 4 cups of beef bouillon. Bring to a boil and cook until the chunks of potato are tender - 10 minutes or so. Take off the heat and add remaining ingredients, tasting after each addition.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Pad Thai

This is based on a recipe Emily gave me (and showed me how to make) after she took a cooking class in Thailand or somewhere like that. I can't remember. Anyway, it's authentic, more or less. I messed around with the proportions, and the ones in this recipe are only an approximation of what I actually used.

Ingredients

• 1/2 block of tofu, cut into .5cm x 1.5cm x 1.5cm blocks (or so).
  
• 2 cloves garlic
  
• some oil
  
• ~7oz 'rice stick noodle'
  
• 2T brown sugar
  
• 3T soy sauce
  
• 3T mushroom sauce ('vegetarian stir-fry sauce')
  
• water
  
• 1 egg, beaten
  
• 1/3c scallions, chopped
  
• limes, bean sprouts, and crushed peanuts to top
  

Heat a small amount of oil in a big pan (wok, if you have it) and add the garlic. After about 30 seconds or a minute, add the tofu and cook until the tofu is getting brown and crispy. Then add the egg and scramble. Once the egg is cooked, add the brown sugar, soy sauce, mushroom sauce, scallions, and noodles. toss those around a little, and then add about a cup of water. Stir around a little more, and then cover. The steam cooks the noodles. Stir the pot around periodically so things don't stick. If the pad thai ever looks like it's starting to get dry, add more water and re-cover. When the pasta is cooked through, adjust seasoning, add water and possibly more soy sauce, hot sauce (maybe sriracha, if you have any) and serve. Feeds about 3-4, depending on how hungry you are.

Thoughts: This went pretty well. Next time I'm thinking I'll add a little rice-wine vinegar or tamarind juice (or both), a little more brown sugar, a little fish sauce, and a little more water / soy sauce / stir fry sauce. The recipe works very nicely, it's just a matter of adjusting the seasoning to taste right.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - this is workable. Give it a shot.