Chicken Satay Improvisation

I've been craving Chicken Satay, or as I like to call it Curried Chicken with Peanut Butter Gravy and Rice.

I knew I had the chicken, peanut butter, curry powder, and rice, But I had to wing it on the rest of the spicing.

First I got out the 2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced them into bite sized pieces and put them in a ziplock bag. Then I started looking around for spices: 3 teaspoons curry powder, 2 cloves of fresh garlic, sliced, 4 silver dollar sized slices of ginger (I store my ginger in a jar of sherry in the fridge), 1 tablespoon ginger flavored sherry, 2 tablespoons lemon juice (I didn't have lime juice), 2 tablespoons tamari, and 2 tablespoons fish sauce. I let the chicken marinate in all that for a couple of days.

Then I started 1 cup rice to cook, and sauteed the chicken in small batches in a little bit of vegetable oil. I understand that Satay means skewered but I don't like using the broiler and didn't want to mess around with skewers. When all the chicken was cooked I thew out the ginger and cooked the rest of the marinade and the garlic slices. Then I added 1/2 cup peanut butter. If I had a can of coconut milk I would have used it to thin the gravy, but I didn't have any flavored liquids on hand so I had to use water. When the gravy was a good consistency I tasted it. It was a bit bland, so I added 1 tablespoon curry, 1 teaspoon tamari and some salt (I've been craving salt lately). Then I mixed the cooked chicken into the gravy and served it over the rice.