I have to admit that one of the things I miss the most from Panama, is having access to all the asian food you can possibly want. Chinese food is practically part of our culture, as is take out sushi and other japanese dishes. Thai and vietnamese food is not hard to find, and if you are not in the mood to go in a restaurant and want to cook yourself, there are places everywhere where you can buy all the ingredients you need to make an authentic asian feast. Here in Italy, not so much.
Of course food in Italy is beyond amazing, but when it comes to foreign cuisine, is a little hard to find good restaurants and even harder to find ingredients in the supermarket. If you live in a big city you may find ethnic shops where you can buy a lot of stuff, Milan has many asian restaurants that range from not so expensive to really high cuisine. But coming back to my current problem, where I live there is no ethnic food shop, and nearby there are only 2 asian restaurants. By the way, I moved to the province of Parma which was declared by UNESCO as Creative City for Gastronomy, this is the region famous for the Parma ham (prosciutto di Parma) and parmesan cheese (parmigiano-reggiano). I am more than happy to be here and so far the culinary experience has been incredible. But this time I will focus on the issue which is asian food.
So, I went with my husband for the second time to this asian restaurant. They offer chinese, japanese and thai dishes, the first time I remembered ordering pad thai and it was good, so we decided to go a second time, and this time my husband ordered shrimp satay. I am no expert in asian food, but anyway I told my husband that for what I remembered, satay is a peanut sauce. When the dish arrived, it looked nothing like satay; I was expecting the shrimp grilled on a skewer with the peanut sauce on the side or something like that. Instead, we got a little pot with stewed shrimp and vegetables (peppers, carrots and onions) swimming in a liquid sauce. It did not taste bad, but I don't think that is satay at all.
That inspired me to cook chicken satay as I remember eating it in Panama in a beautiful restaurant located in Boquete: chicken breast on a skewer grilled and served with a thick peanut sauce.
First, we cut the chicken breast in strips and season it with:
Marinade:
- Plain yogurt
- Curry Powder
- Minced garlic
- Soy sauce
- Sesame oil
- Fish sauce (nuoc mam)
Cover and let it marinade in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Then put the chicken on skewers and grill them (you can grill them on a stovetop grill or just use a pan to sear them). Notice I did not put salt because the soy sauce and fish sauce are already salty.
For the sauce, put in the food processor the following:
- unsalted roasted peanuts
- fish sauce
- soy sauce
- sesame oil
- lime juice
- garlic
- plain yogurt
- red pepper flakes
If the sauce is too thick, you can thin it with some water. I did the sauce with yogurt but you can use coconut milk, use as much as you want to make it more or less creamy depending on your liking.
Here is the result:
I did not have any fresh herbs at the moment but I encourage you to use fresh coriander leaves in the sauce or even thai basil. Serve with some basmati rice and a simple cucumber salad (fresh cucumbers, sugar, salt and white vinegar).
Enjoy!