Chicken Satay With Peanut Dipping Sauce And Sweet Cucumber Salad

Satay is a popular dish in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, and the Netherlands.

In Malaysia, satay is a popular dish - especially during celebrations - and can be found throughout the country. Satay is found in every part of Thailand…. Starting form the street side food vendors to authentic cuisine…….

This is my family favorite appetizer perfect for all occasions…. It is a combination of sweet, hot and aromatic spice flavors, love it a lot….. It is basically skewers of marinated chicken which is cooked in the charcoal grill. Unfortunately we are not allowed to keep a grill in our apartments I do it in the oven…… I cook the chicken in the oven and to get the grill flavor I finish cooking the chicken in broil oven settings…… Chicken satay is accomplished with nutty peanut dipping sauce…. This is served with sweet cucumber salad which helps to keep the mouth cool after every bit of the spicy chicken.

For Chicken Marinade:

Chicken breasts, cut into strips – 1 ½ pounds
Yogurt - 1 cup
Fresh ginger garlic paste – 1 tablespoon
Thai curry powder - 1 tablespoon
Turmeric powder – ½ teaspoon
Chili powder – ½ teaspoon
Salt as required.

For Peanut Dipping Sauce:

Smooth peanut butter – 1 Cup
Soy sauce – 2 tablespoon
Red Chili Paste (I love the brand named Sambal) – 2 teaspoon
Lemon juice – 2 tablespoon
Brown Sugar – 2 tablespoon
Hot water – ¼ cup
Some roasted chopped peanuts for garnish.

For Sweet Cucumber Salad:

Cucumber – 1 large
Shreds carrot – ½ cup
Red onion – 1 small
Lettuces – 1 head
Lemon juice – 1 teaspoon
White Vinegar – 1 tablespoon
Sugar – 2 or 3 tablespoon

20 wooden skewers, soaked in water for 2 hours
Vegetable oil, for greasing

Chicken Satay:

Combine all the marinade ingredients to the chicken and marinade it overnight in the refrigerator. Now thread the chicken pieces onto the soaked skewers moving the skewer in and out of the meat. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and place the skewers on the lined and greased baking sheet. Now cook the chicken for 15 mins or until cooked. Now turn the oven setting to broil and cook for 2 to 5 mins.

Peanut Dipping Sauce:

Combine the peanut butter, soy sauce, red chili paste, brown sugar, and lemon juice in a food processor. Process till combined. Drizzle in the hot water to thin out the sauce, until the consistency needed. Pour the sauce into bowl and garnish with the chopped peanuts.

Sweet Cucumber Salad:

Chop all the vegetables to almost the same size. Now combine the lemon juice, Vinegar and sugar (these can be adjusted according to our taste) and drizzle it on the bowl of chopped veggies.

Make a bed out of the sweet cucumber salad and place the satay skewers on it and serve it with peanut dipping sauce.

Mini Idly Sambar

Idly sambar is one of the traditional south Indian breakfast suitable for all occasions. Me….. I can eat it any time a day… love it so much…




Have tried many recipes for sambar and finally got this one……. They tastes very good with idly, dosa, pongal and vada…… The main ingredient with makes the sambar more tasteful is the shallots (which I call as sambar onion)..... There are lot of difference between the sambar cooked with shallots and without it....Love the sweet taste of shallots a lot....

Ingredients :

Idly batter – 2 cups (recipe)
Ghee – 2 tablespoon

For sambar

Shallots – 1 cup
Toor dal – ½ cup
Tamarind paste – 1 teaspoon
Tomatoes - 2 small
Green chillies – 2
Mustered seeds – 1 teaspoon
Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
Coriander leaves – ½ bunch
Red chilli – 2
Asafetida – 1 pinch
Salt to taste
Oil – 2 tablespoon



For sambar Masala paste
Red chillies – 8
Coriander seeds – 2 to 3 teaspoon
Urad dal – 1 ½ teaspoon
Channa dal – 2 teaspoon
Cumin seeds – ½ teaspoon
Fenugreek seeds a pinch
Grated Coconut – ¼ cup

Fry 1 onion and 1 tomato in 1 teaspoon of oil and set it aside.

Heat 1 teaspoon of oil and roast all the above masala ingredients except coconut until golden

Let it cool and grind all the roast masalas, onion and tomatoes and coconut…… Water can be added if needed and make it a smooth paste.

Procedure :

Slather the mini idly plate with ghee and fill in idly batter in the plate. Now steam it as usual for 10 mins. Make as many batches needed....







Heat oil in a shallow pan and temper it with mustered seeds, red chilli and few curry leaves and fry the shallots for 2 mins and then add tomatoes and green chillies and statue it for 2 mins.



In the meanwhile cook toor dal in pressure cooker and mash well.

Now add the cooked dal, ground paste, tamarind paste in the pan and add enough water and bring it to boil and add asafetida.



When the sambar is thick enough, remove from fire and garnish with coriander leaves and curry leaves.

Roasted Vegetable Soup

Roasted Vegetable soup is a good recipe for leftover roasted vegetables....... Whenever I make roasted vegetables, I make a lot so that the next day I can make this hearty soup...

This is a very simple and healthy soup. Best way to make people to eat all the vegetables..... All these vegetables are not always stable for this soup, I used to add any vegetable I have in hand. Some times I even roast some tomatoes instead tomato pure.... This is a very comforting soup in cold winter.

Ingredients :

Roasted Vegetables - 2 cups
Vegetable stock - 4 cups ----- recipe
Tomato puree - 1/2 cup
Dried basil - 1 teaspoon
Garlic - 2 cloves
Butter - 2 tablespoon
Salt for taste
Freshly ground black pepper

For Roasted Vegetable :
Carrots – 2
Red bell pepper – 1
Green bell pepper – 1
Orange bell pepper – 1
Zucchini – 1
Potato - 2
Celery – 3 stalks
Cauliflower – 10 florets
Red onion – 1
White onion – 1
Salt – 1 teaspoon
Black pepper – 2 teaspoon
Olive oil – ¼ cup

Procedure :

Preheat the oven to 400 degree
1. Cut all the vegetables almost in the same size.

2. Place it in the large casserole dish.



3. Drizzle them with olive oil, salt and pepper.

4. Now pop in the oven and roast it for 45mins or until all the vegetables is soft and cooked.



5. In a large saucepan, heat the butter and add the chopped garlic, Then add the tomato puree and simmer it for 2 mins....Now add 4 cups of vegetable stock and bring it to a boil.

6. Now coarsely puree the roasted vegetables and add it to the sauce pan and simmer it for 5 mins and add basil and salt and pepper if needed. If the soup is very thick more vegetable stock can be added.

While serving i used to stir in some butter and top it with some fresh cream.... These are optional..