Well, I'm actually going to make two new recipes this week, to make up for the non-cooking of last week (due to S's crappy work schedule, two dinners out and two days of terminal laziness). I wasn't going to, but when I was mucking around on the internet at work this afternoon I found a simple recipe for chicken with peanut sauce that I knew I had all the ingredients for, since the ingredients were: Salsa, chicken, olive oil, peanut butter, lemon juice.
If you're now thinking, hmmm, that doesn't sound very good, well, you're right. I'm going to say right now that it wasn't horrible. It just wasn't great. Here's why I didn't think it would be bad: Thai food is good, and involves peanuts and tomatoes. The chicken I had was of dubious quality because it was not a good brand and I've had this brand before and it is usually full of icky veins and fatty crap; this recipe requires the cutting into chunks of the chicken, which is perfect if you want to cut out all the gross stuff. I also thought that I could pair it with sticky rice (another experiment in my darling, wonderful, perfect rice cooker), which I love love love. And lastly, I thought there was an off-chance that S would like it, as he loves the sort of peanut sauce that comes with satay (in fact, he's fond of saying "Everything tastes better with peanut sauce" when we're eating at Stir Crazy) and he's really good about trying the new things I cook.
And for all those reasons, except the first, it was good. The sticky rice was good. S did try it and eat it (albeit sort of unhappily, as I myself ate it). The chopping of the chicken did allow me to get rid of the ick bits. But the tastes just weren't that great. It lacked something. I think I put too much salsa in too, and not enough peanut butter. It was also five million times better with a squirt or two of lemon juice over the top, because it added some tang. S did not add lemon juice, and he ate a pile of rice with it, but all in all, probably didn't get enough to eat.
Would I recommend this? No. Am I still hungry? Yes. It wasn't satisfying enough to eat enough of it. My stomach is all rumbly. Not a success. Maybe Thursday night's experiment will be more successful.
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