Almost Paleo Chicken Satay

I finally ran out of Trader Joe’s Satay Sauce so I broke down and made my own. I used cashews instead of peanuts to make it more Paleo/Primal and in retrospect I rather wish I’d left out the sugar to make it completely so.  But I originally intended it as a grilling sauce rather than a dipping sauce, not realizing that the sauce for satay is SUPPOSED to be a dipping sauce though of course you can brush some on when you grill. So in the future I’ll mix it up sans sugar – neither of us thinks it really needs it.

Sauce Ingredients:

1 cup salted cashew halves & pieces

1/3 cup water

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 T organic cane sugar

1 T Tamari (soy sauce will work)

½ T lime juice

2 t sesame oil

1 t Sriracha

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. None of the ingredients require refrigeration so I don't believe this does either.

This time I used breasts rather than thighs. Slice however many chicken breasts you’re going to cook (I used three) into one inch strips and marinate in soy sauce and a dash of garlic powder and another of turmeric for a couple of hours.

Skewer chicken strips, brush with sauce and grill until just done. It looks burnt but that's just the sauce on top - the meat was tender and juicy!

Kate stirred up some mixed veggies - summer squash, zucchini, cabbage, red bell pepper, broccoli stems, carrots, onions and garlic - with some soy sauce and Chinese Five Spice seasoning to go with it.

Shrimp Stuffed Sole

I recently discovered Bob McDiarmid's blog, Bob's Cooking. He has what appears to be a wonderful recipe for Yellow Mango Curry Stuffed Dover Sole which I started to try. However, I'm not that big on mango (we have none in the house) and really wasn't up to trying to make the sauce. So, using Bob's recipe as a starting point/inspiration, I Googled a few other stuffed sole recipes and modified them to make my own. Here's the result. Note: in going for stricter Paleo/Primal food I use tapioca starch instead of corn starch or flour for a thickener. I probably should have used coconut oil instead of butter but a man's got to know his limitations.

Ingredients:

Stuffing
• ½ pound cooked shrimp
• 1 T parsley
• 1 T herbs de Provence
• 3 shallots

Wine Sauce
• 1 T lemon juice
• 2 T thinly sliced green onions
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• ¼ c dry white wine

Sole
• 4 (6 ounce) fillets sole
• salt to taste
• ground black pepper to taste
• paprika to taste

Butter Sauce
• 2 T butter
• 1 T tapioca starch
• ¼ c dry white wine

Directions:

1. To make the stuffing, set aside twelve shrimp to use as garnish. Mince remaining shrimp and the shallots very fine. (I use a food processor.) Add herbs and parsley and mix well.

2. In a small bowl, combine lemon juice, green onion, garlic, and ¼ c wine. Set aside.

 3. Lay filets flat, and divide shrimp mixture evenly among them and pat down. Roll up the fillets around the shrimp mixture, and place in a baking dish. (Secure with toothpicks if necessary.) Season to taste with salt, pepper, and paprika. Place three shrimp atop each filet and pour wine sauce over the fish.

4. Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes.

5. When fillets are done, prepare the butter sauce. In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in tapioca starch. Transfer fish to serving platter. Pour pan juices into butter/tapioca starch mixture, add the remaining wine, cook and stir until thickened. Pour over sole, and serve.
















As you can see I only had three sole filets: that just meant they were a little more stuffed than they would have been otherwise. Some of the excess stuffing that fell out got sprinkled over the top and it came out just fine.

Moroccan Smoked Chicken

Joseph's turn to write!  (And yes, we're still on that Moroccan kick.  I made Moroccan Spiced Vegetables to go with this...)

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Today is the Excelsior Springs BBQ and Fly-In - a marvelous annual event where BBQers from all over converge on the town to compete for the Grand Championship. Here's the web page - http://bbqontherivercontest.com/

I really love this event, but Kate's knees can no longer do the kind of walking necessary to enjoy it. So I decided to break out my little smoker and have our own event. Given that the whole town is filled with traditional BBQ, I decided to opt for something different. Inspired by a recipe for Moroccan Grilled Salmon that I received this morning via e-mail from Paleo Recipe A Day, I adapted it to chicken. I used their spice recipe exactly:

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger or 1 1/2 teaspoons dried
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 1/2 teaspoons salt (I use sea salt)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Mix together into a paste and spread on the chicken. On a grill this makes a crust but in the smoker it just kind of oozes around and flavors everything. I cut the back and the dorsal bone out of the chicken so it would lay flat - the same as you would do if you were going to grill it using a brick. But I just put it in the smoker and let it go. It took rather longer than I expected - almost four hours - but it was well worth the wait. We already ate half of it before Kate thought to take a picture, but here's the other half still in the smoker:



Tomorrow will be the Fly-In portion of the event, held at the Excelsior Springs Airport. We'll be having our monthly sketch crawl out there and I may try to catch a ride on one of the planes. We'll see...