Sauce for Chicken ?

[mudbug]

Feeling brain dead and need your collective creativity. Here's what I have to work with:

about 3 pounds of chicken breasts (will be skinned)

jars of peanut satay, apricot preserves, ginger puree, sun-dried tomato tapenade (not a lot), vidalia onion relish

olive oil, red wine vinegar, dry vermouth, merlot

I plan on serving with carrots, green salad, and either biscuits or rice..

 

[crewsk]

This would take care of the apricot preserves. Other than that I'm afraid I'm just as brain dead.

1C. apricot preserves
1(8oz)bottle Catalina dressing
1pkg. onion soup mix
6-8 chicken breasts

Mix apricot preserves, dressing, & soup mix. Place chicken in a large, greased baking dish & pour apricot mixture over chicken. Bake uncovered at 325 deg. for 1 hour & 20 min. Serve over hot rice.

For a change of pace, use Russian dressing in place of the Catalina.

 

[mudbug]

thanks, crewsk. That's a good possibility and would taste really nice with rice.

p.s. Everyone else, I also have fresh lemon juice I could use.

 

[PA Baker]

Do you have any orange juice? If so, how about combining 1 c apricot preserves, 1/2 c OJ, and a Tbsp or so of the ginger puree (more or less to taste?). If you have soy sauce you could add a spash of that, too. Maybe a pinch of red pepper flakes. Stir fry the chicken, remove it from the pan, put your sauce ingredients in and simmer until it's somewhat thick. Add the chicken back in and serve over rice.

 

[mudbug]

PA, that would work too. Have the OJ and a couple packets of soy from the last takeout thing we did. You had a recipe on the Chicken thread that I think is very similar to this, no? That was one of the ones I was thinking of trying until I started begging here.

I was hoping someone would come up with a dish where I didn't have to cut the chicken up much (feeling brain dead AND lazy), but it's looking inevitable.

 

[Weeks]

Did anyone else look at those ingredients and think mandarin peanut sauce?

Take the apricot preserves and some orange zest, along with a touch of that lemon juice and add it to the peanut satay in the pan you sauteed the chicken in, after it's cooled down a little bit over medium heat. Add in about an ounce of, say, grey goose l'orange vodka, and perhaps some wasabi horseradish sauce and simmer for a little bit until you get the consistency and taste you want.

*ponders* I'd have to experiment with it, but those tastes would mesh fairly well. Apricots for sweetness, lemon juice and orange zest for the tangy bitter/sour and peanuts for body and saltiness. The vodka and wasabi would just be for the kick, so small amounts of each. More apricot than peanut, but less orange and lemon than peanuts, with small touches of the vodka and wasabi.

 

[mudbug]

Iiiinteresting, Weeks! have regular vodka but no oranges (altho could get some fairly fast).

No wasabi horseradish either, but I do have another jar of stuff I forgot about - apricot mango wasabi sauce. Horseradish is one of the ingredients.

Can you please continue?

 

[Yakuta]

You have satay sauce so why not make satay.

To add pizzaz to the sauce add a tiny bit of ginger puree and some lemon or lime zest along with juice. If you have cilantro or can easily get some that would work well as well or skip it.

Cut breasts into strips, marinate in this mixture for an hour. Thread onto skewers or if you don't have skewers just place the strips on a stovetop grill or pan and cook.

Add the reserved marinade to a seperate saucepan and boil it. Once thick and nice place in a bowl as a dipping sauce.

Prepare some stir fry rice with it. Add frozen veggies, egg some soy sauce, salt, black pepper and fresh herbs or scallions. Satay, sauce and rice would make a great Asian inspired meal. A soup would go over very well with this meal that is given you had any in your pantry.

I normally keep cans of creamed style corn and cream of chicken to whip up a fast soup.

Chop up some garlic cloves (4 or so), chop up 1 small green chilli or jalapeno. Thrown in 2 tbsp of butter in a saucepan. Add the garlic and green chilli and saute it for a few minutes. Next add the cream of chicken and creamstyle corn cans along with some water and let it all simmer for 30 minutes.

 

[Audeo]

Hmmm....I'd be tempted to bone those breasts, pound them to a consistent thickness, make a filling from the tapenade, onion relish and a splash each of the ginger and vermouth, then form the breasts into a roulade. Saute until browned all around in a wee bit of olive oil.

However, if you have some honey and soy sauce around, you've got the makings for classic chicken satay...marinate strips of chicken in a mixture of honey, some soy sauce (about 1 Tbsp. each), a few drops of tabasco, a clove of crushed garlic and about a big Tbsp. of your ginger...let it sit for about an hour. Then thread the strips onto water-logged bamboo skewers and slap onto a hot grill for 3-4 minutes on each side.

Make a satay souce with a good glob of the peanut satay, a tad more ginger, crushed garlic (I like alot), a tsp. of soy, a smidgeon of coriander (if it's not already in the peanut satay), some red pepper flakes....warm into a nice sauce. Remove the chicken from the skewers and onto a bed of rice and top with the satay.

 

[mudbug]

Yakuta and Audeo, your ideas sound equally wonderful! I will have to see how fast this chicken thaws to determine whether I have enough time to marinate as well - in order to have dinner on the table in a reasonable time.

Yakuta, I've never made fried rice from scratch before, so I think I would like to practice few times first. And I hate creamed corn, but the way you suggest using it sounds quite tasty!

Another variation I've been pondering is to basically go with PA's suggestions and add some honey roasted peanuts or toast and chop some pecans to add to the sauce.

Thanks to everyone for your input. I knew I would get some great ideas!

 

[PA Baker]

Oooh, nuts would make a nice addition, mudbug! Do you have any almonds? Some toasted almonds would go well, too, although your pecans would work just fine. You'll have to let us know what you finally end up with!

 

[Audeo]

That's funny that Yakuta had the same basic idea! I can't "see" my posts right after I post them anymore, so I didn't know she had a similar post until now!

Sure like the idea of cilantro!

 

[mudbug]

I like a teeny bit of cilantro, but not a lot. I do have quite a bit of flat leaf fresh parsley, but I don't think it would add the same flavor. (Using that all up is a whole nother deal for another day!)

 

[Audeo]

Understand there... I've always preferred flat-leaf to curly. Just a larger, better flavor, IMO.

 

[Yakuta]

Mudbug, my version of chicken satay was based on the ingredients you had. Normally satay sauce uses a lot of ingredients but I am assuming since you have a bottled version it should have some of it added.

Also my two cents on fried rice. It's pretty simple if you have some leftover rice. You can make your own creative version with ingredients you like. The entire point is to make it flavorful and aunthenticity is not that important when you are cooking with whatever you have available in your freezer.

I have made fried rice with frozen veggies and eggs along with meat of my choice. I normally add some chopped herbs, scallions and sauces to mine to make it even more flavorful than the plain version. It's a whole meal in itself.

 

[mudbug]

Yep, totally agree on the whole meal concept, Yakuta. Daughter fortunately is coming around to that point of view as well, so gives me an excuse to shove some more "good stuff" down her throat. No leftover rice around tonight, just uncooked.

So here's what I've done:

Cut chicken into chunks (contained bones and my knife is dull, so chunks were easier).

Made marinade consisting of 1 cup apricot preserves, 1/2 cup each OJ and the peanut satay, 3 packets of takeout soy sauce, fat garlic clove minced, shake of regular S&P, and shake of red pepper flakes.

In an hour, I am going to remove chicken from marinade and coat with cornstarch before stir frying in oil. Boil the marinade down to thicken, and add some crushed honey roasted peanuts right at the end.

Serve the whole thing over hot white rice and a green salad alongside. Maybe grate up some extra carrot for the salad. Inform you all tomorrow how it tasted.

 

[Audeo]

Sounds really good, mudbug -- looking forward to the full report!!

Yakuta, for the record, I'm going to pale in your obvious greatness when it comes to authentic recipes and methods for satay...!

 

[SizzlininIN]

Hey Mudbug..........I know I was brain dead earlier but I was thumbing through some of my cookbooks tonight and saw a recipe that you may be able to use in the future:

Peanut Sate' Sauce

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 Tbsp. rice vinegar or white vinegar
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. toasted sesame oil
1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper
2 Tbsp. thinly sliced green onion

*For sauce, in a small bowl stir together the peanut butter, vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, toasted sesame oil, and crushed red pepper. Stir in the green onion.

*Brush the sauce onto meat kabobs the last 5 minutes of grilling. Heat and stir any remaining sauce just till bubbly; serve with the kabobs. Makes about 1/2 cup sauce, enough for 1 to 2 pounds of meat.

I'm def. going to have to try this one out with chicken sometime.

I found the recipe in The Better Homes & Gardens 1996 Annual Cookbook

 

[mudbug]

Well, we ate every last bit of it, except for a few small pieces of chicken. I have to say it turned out just fine - not too sweet, not too hot. Had to add a slurry of cornstarch and water to the sauce because it was still fairly thin when the rice was almost done. I think green onions would have been a nice addition.

Sizz, thanks for the additional satay recipe. It's been said before, but I will say it again - you guys are the greatest!

 

[PA Baker]

That sounds like a great creation, mud! I'm making a mental note to try it sometime!