September 15, 2011

amuse #3: chicken peanut satay & green papaya salad

My favorite cuisine is Thai, so I had to do a Thai-style amuse. This one was especially ambitious because besides trying new things without a recipe, I was also doing two things at once: chicken satay AND papaya salad. Thankfully each involved a marinade/sauce that I was able to make the day before so that cut down on prep time.

green papaya salad ingredients

I love green papaya salad but have never worked with it before, so it was interesting to shred and taste it plain. It actually tastes like... not very much.

shredding green papaya

To the shredded papaya I added halved cherry tomatoes and chopped green beans (you can also substitute Chinese long beans). The salad dressing involved olive oil, shrimp paste, fish sauce, lime and honey. Although it tasted okay, I thought it could be better but wasn't sure how to make it better - it just didn't taste authentic. Maybe I need my grandma's nuoc mam (cooked fish sauce)...

For the chicken satay I used the leftover diced chicken cubes from the Chinese chicken lettuce cups and marinated them in peanut sauce (peanut butter + soy sauce + lemon juice + brown sugar + garlic + curry powder). But honestly this peanut dressing is far superior and I wish I would've used it instead. I sauteed the chicken cubes and browned them in the broiler to get a little char since the cubes were way too small for me to grill.

chicken peanut satay and green papaya salad

This amuse bite had no chance of being held together by a skewer, so I used Asian soup spoons for the presentation. The skewers for the chicken were unnecessary but I just liked how they looked, especially since the soup spoons were plain.

green papaya amuses

As you can see I made a lot! But they all got eaten, and that made me happy.

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