Silverknife - Food: Dead Easy Pseudo-Satay

This is a really simple recipe you can knock out in 45 minutes if you're reasonably au fait in the kitchen. It's not really satay since it's not barbecued, but the mixture of flavours is the same - hey, it's a nutty spicy thing, why get hung up on names?

Ingredients (for three people)

A pound and a half of chicken, without bones (as usual I recommend you get free range - apart from the welfare issue the flavour is way better)
One medium-sized onion (about the size of a tennis ball)
Four goodsized cloves of garlic
Curry powder, or your own mix of spices, whatever tastes good
About a cup of water or chicken stock
Soy sauce
Sesame oil
Four tablespoons of peanut butter
Salt, and lots of ground black pepper

Chop up the chicken into goodsized chunks (it'll shrink in the pan), the garlic into thin slices and the onion as small as you can be bothered.

From 090217 Satay

Get the pan good and hot with a couple of tablespoons of sesame oil, then throw in the chicken and onion together - for some dishes I'd brown off the onion first or at least let it get translucent, but for this one I think the flavour benefits from the sharpness - and sprinkle a bit of curry powder over the whole so the flavour gets cooked into the meat from the beginning.

From 090217 Satay

Keep everything moving with the heat fairly high until the chicken starts to brown, then turn the heat down to medium and add the peanut butter. Stir it around till the peanut butter's melted through the pan.

From 090217 Satay

Now add the water or stock, a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce and season with salt and pepper. Have a good scrape at the bottom of the pan with a plastic or wooden spatula - there's loads of encrusted flavour down there you want to get into your sauce. Stir everything around, then leave to simmer for about thirty minutes, uncovered. You want it just hot enough to be raising the odd bubble but not boiling the sauce - that'll shred the chicken over time. Take a taste test now, and adjust the flavour with extra salt or soy, spice etc. if you feel it needs it.