Chicken satay, sort of

Like I said, I had all this leftover peanut sauce in the fridge from the soba noodle thing the other day so I decided that we'd have chicken satay at some point. Melanie seemed really enthusiastic about it when I broached the topic at the Tupperware party that we all attended (and, no, that's not code for a sex toy party, we actually went to a real, live tupperparty with a tupperlady and everything. Ariane can verify). So I gave it a shot.

I had just shy of 2 pounds worth of boneless, skinless chicken breast. Mark Bittman says that chicken thighs work better for satay because they don't dry out and he's probably right but I happened to have breasts so breasts it was (whee!). Sliced them into thin strips of about 1 ½ " width (this is easier if they are a little bit frozen so you can stick them in the freezer for five ten minutes). Put the strips into a big (non-tupper) plastic bowl for marinating and added the juice from one lime, 1 tablespoon sesame oil, 2 tablespoons olive oil, ½ teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, 2 crushed cloves garlic, a drizzle of rice wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons minced cilantro, salt and pepper. Tossed it all really well together and left it in the fridge for about 5 hours, giving it a stir every now and then to distribute the marinade. When it was time to cook dinner, I confess I did not end up putting the chicken strips on bamboo skewers and grilling them. That would have been awesome and delicious and maybe I'll do that one of these days. But I hate getting the grill all going just for one little thing and I didn't have any veggies or anything else to use the grill for so I skipped it. Also, as it turns out and as Jeremy later pointed out, my grill is actually sitting on their porch right now, all covered in street grime. So, whatever. I got my cast iron grill pan and heated it up super hot with a thin film of sesame oil on it. Lay the strips of chicken on the very hot grill pan and let them go about 3-4 minutes per side, at least until they were well-marked with brown grill lines. My grill pan is not huge so I had to do this in several batches, keeping the finished strips warm in the oven. I heated up the remaining peanut sauce (about ¾ cup) very gently with a few tablespoons of water whisked in to smooth it out. I sort of got careless and it burned on the bottom because I was toasting sesame seeds for the broccoli and got distracted. Don't let it happen to you! Poured the peanut sauce into a small bowl in the center of a platter surrounded by the grilled chicken strips and let everybody grab their own and pour the sauce over the top. Not as much fun as if it had been on skewers, but pretty delicious anyway.