After a successful trip to the local Thai place where I had Rama chicken I wanted to recreate this dish. It is a nice Thai peanut sauce over chicken and spinach. This “recipe” is more of a combination of two recipes. One for Satay Chicken from a Cooking Light compilation, and one for Rama chicken off the Internet. Since this is summer, and it is hot here, I opted to cook the chicken on the grill.
Marinate:
1 whole chicken breast (or two halves) cut into strips. I got about 8-10 strips.
1 Tbsp brown sugar. I used dark, light is an option.
2.5 Tbsp of low-sodium soy sauce
2 teaspoons of fresh ginger. I just grated some fresh stuff into the bowl.
1 zest from one lime.
1/4 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes
2 garlic cloves, chopped or minced.
Combine in a bowl and let the chicken marinate for about 10 minutes. Fire up the grill.
Sauce:
The sauce is where things get interesting. I didn’t like the cooking light sauce, and didn’t have all the ingredients for the other one. So I winged it.
1-3 Tbsp of light brown sugar
1.5 Tbsp of low-sodium soy sauce
Thai fish sauce (a few dashes to taste)
2-4 Tbsp of peanut butter (fresh ground if you can get it)
juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes (to taste)
1 garlic clove, minced.
1 5oz can of coconut milk
Heavy Cream
Combine in a sauce pan and cook over medium heat. This is mostly a guide. Start on low side of the ingredients and add to taste and consistency. I didn’t like the low peanut flavor so I added peanut butter until I got the flavor I liked. Towards the end of the cooking I didn’t like the color nor the consistency so I added 1-3 Tbsps of heavy cream. That lightened it up, offset the lime flavors, and thinned out the mixture a bit.
Put the chicken on skewers and grill for about 5 minutes per side on your grill. After they are cooked remove from grill and let the meat stand for a few minutes covered with foil. Plate with a bed of spinach, then the chicken topped with the sauce. Serve with white rice if you wish.
Post-mortem:
Came out pretty good. the chicken had a distinct lime flavor, although I thought the lime juice was too much in the peanut sauce. I’d omit this next time. It could be spicier on the whole. More red pepper flakes, or maybe some red curry sauce. It had just the faintest bite.
Definitely a strong peanut taste, which is what I was shooting for, although the sauce could be thinner. I could probably back off on the peanut butter since after it cooled a bit the peanut taste got much stronger. Needs more coconut milk too.
All in all, a tasty meal. I’d definitely do this again.
Chicken Rama w/Peanut Sauce