MKMW - Indonesian Weeki

I have have this funny feeling that my manu choices for this week's MKMW - Indonesia challenge were a total cop out. Mixed rice and chicken satay? Really? (Is there anyone on the blogroll that didn't make some sort of satay? No? I didn't think so.)

Here's how it shook out - I made about 12 cups of rice for a Labor Day party on Monday. At the end of the day there were exactly 11 cups left. (Yeah...really. I know.) I also had about 2/3 of the pepper and tomato salad that I had mixed up. I cooked up the peppers and tomatoes in a large dutch oven, added all the rice, and then added Yoshida's Marinade (a sort of teriyaki sauce) to it until it tasted right. TOTALLY not Indonesian, I know...but Indonesia is in Asia, and we all eat rice. I figured my little version of "lo faan" could slide by.

My chicken satay was even more of a scramble. (Have I ever mentioned that I really don't like following recipes the first time I cook them? Baking is a different matter...but cooking gives me so much FREEDOM. If I had all the ingredients on hand, I wouldn't have to wing it. Oh well.)

The chicken started out as a marinated chicken thigh, based off of a recipe from Pioneer Woman's site here. Basically, I marinated the chicken thighs, overnight, in a mixture of equal parts milk and plain yogurt, with a little salt and minced garlic thrown in for flavor. When I realized that I wanted to make them into satay, I sliced the thighs into strips and threaded them onto pre-soaked bamboo skewers. I grilled those over medium heat and then basted them with honey at the end to give them a sweet crunch.

I served my skewers with a peanut sauce loosely based on a recipe I found here.

Umm...wow. On second thought, don't even compare my sauce to that recipe. I didn't realize I had strayed SO far from the path! I mixed, in a bowl (to taste) the following ingredients: smooth peanut butter, Thai sweet chili sauce (I'm a pepper wuss, so I like to keep things mild!), coconut milk, brown sugar, rice vinegar, soy sauce, tamari and a little hot water.

And that, my friends, is a true and faithful account of how I chose to cook my dinner during Indonesia week. Judge me as you will. (However, if you had tasted my peanut sauce on my FANTASTICALLY tender chicken...you might not be inclined to judge so harshly! I'm still trying to finish off th0se 11 cups of rice, though - maybe that is my penance.)