Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Thai peanut stir-fry

This is a great weeknight dinner recipe.  It is healthy with chicken, fresh vegetables and peanuts, and does not require any chopping at all.  At my local grocery store, carrots and sugar snap peas are sold in a bag together in the produce section, in the perfect size for the recipe.  Exactly what you need to help get your family through a busy week!  Serves 3-4.

Ingredients:
1 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 lb. fresh chicken breast tenderloins
1 cup fresh baby carrots
1 cup sugar snap peas
1/2 cup peanuts
1/3 cup Thai peanut sauce (I prefer the one made by Target).
Hot cooked rice or other grain for serving







Directions:

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add chicken to pan, and cook for about 5 minutes.  Add carrots and sugar cnap peas to pan, and saute for another 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. 





















Reduce heat to medium low, add peanuts to pan, and cook for 3 minutes.  Add peanut sauce to pan and cook, stirring frequently, for another 3 minutes.




Remove from heat and serve with hot cooked rice.  Enjoy!






1 comment:

  1. I make a similar meal (my go-to if I have the right noodles in the house) but I make my own sauce. I started making this 20 years ago so now I really just wing it in terms of proportions. Some days it's a bit salty, some days a bit gingery, but it's always good, at least when it's been a long day at work and this is the last option! The recipe comes from, originally, a book called 50 Ways to Cook Everything, based on a series of articles called 50 Ways to Love your Liver. My best-loved cookbook, well-used and well-abused, including the seared corners and hole burned in the back cover from when I had a gas stove and turned on the wrong burner while propping it up on the stovetop... The basic process is:

    1. Sesame oil (or perhaps not, depends on if I need to saute a protein or if I just dump frozen shrimp in with the noodles and frozen veggies - one pot bachelorette cooking technique!)
    2. soy sauce
    3. fresh ginger (preferred, or ground if necessary)
    4. hoisin sauce
    (4.5 sometimes another kind of stir fry sauce depending on what I have in the fridge)

    Heat all the above in a saucepan but don't let it reduce too much
    5. creamy peanut butter
    Stir while still on medium heat until PB is melted and sauce is smooth. Remove. Too much heat will separate it or change texture to look curdled (but it's not really curdled, just nasty looking). add boiling water from the veggies and noodles if necessary to thin (original recipe said to use buttermilk, but who keeps that around? Hot water is much more plentiful in my house). Too thinned out and too high a PB:soy ratio can also make it look a nasty light brown color, but it mixes better if it is a bit loose. Time the sauce well so it does not overheat or set up before you mix with noodles.
    Toss with hot noodle/veggie mixture. A squirt of lime and/or a bit or cilantro would probably not be a bad choice as well, makes it a bit more like a pad thai. I prefer wide rice noodles but in a pinch is also just fine over rotini or even rice (see previous note about bachelorette-style cooking!)

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