Easy Chicken Satay

This satay chicken is a welcome addition to BBQs for all occasions big and small. You can complete steps 1 through 4 in advance (the night before or morning of). The recipe is easily doubled or quadrupled if you want to have leftovers, they are fantastic in a salad.

In addition to 2 pounds of chicken tenderloins, you will need the following

Marinade ingredients:

4T soy sauce

2T oil

1T cumin

2T sugar

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Combine marinade ingredients in gallon size ziploc bag. Add 2 lbs of chicken tenderloins. Be sure to count the pieces so you know how many skewers you need. Close the bag with as little extra air as possible. Squish the ingredients around to coat the chicken. Refrigerate for 2 hours.

Peanut Sauce ingredients

2/3 cup water

1/3 cup peanut butter

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2T soy sauce

1T sugar

1t chili sauce (to taste)

2T lime juice (to taste)

In a glass bowl, or other microwave safe container, microwave water and peanut butter for 1.5 to 2 minutes - until they mix easily together with a whisk. Add remaining ingredients and stir until combined. Taste! Add more chili sauce and/or lime juice if desired. The sauce should have an easy pouring consistency. Add a tablespoon or two of water if it is too thick.

Divide the peanut sauce. You will need about a third for brushing on the raw chicken when you skewer it (and again while grilling it if desired). The other two thirds will be used as a dipping sauce for the cooked chicken. "Brushing" and "dipping" sauce must be kept separate to avoid cross contaminating dipping sauce with raw chicken. You can steal some of the dipping sauce if you run out of brushing sauce, but never add leftover brushing sauce back into the dipping sauce.

If making in advance, store sauce in refrigerator. Serve at room temperature.

Soak one skewer per piece of chicken in a pan of water for an hour. You will need something to hold the skewers under the water, otherwise they float. I just put a spoon on top. This will prevent wooden skewers from burning. If you are using metal skewers you can skip this step.

At this point your chicken has been marinading for a couple of hours, the skewers have been soaking for an hour, and the peanut sauce is made and divided.

Skewer each piece of chicken and lay in a shallow pan. When the bottom of the pan is filled brush some peanut sauce on top, and then start another layer. When all the chicken is skewered and sauced you can cover the pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate until you are ready to grill.

The skewers need about 12 minutes total on a hot grill, 6 minutes per side.

If you brush a little oil on the grill it will help prevent sticking. Lifting the skewers every few minutes also helps.

Laying the chicken on the grill so that the skewer ends extend off the edge makes turning them by hand easy, otherwise the skewers can get hot.

If you brush with more peanut sauce remember to use the sauce that was separated for this purpose - do not use the dipping sauce.