Dinner With A Twist - Shrimp With Peanut Sauce.

Every now and then, when I'm trying to come up with something different for a meal, what with there being no new dead animal meat at Food Lion, I tend to go a bit out of my comfort zone and try a new flavor or combination of flavors I've never had before. Such was the case last night. I was thinking about the Thai-Mex restaurant (Scroll to the bottom of the post on that link.) Mr. Hawthorne and I ate at on our last road trip - the one where you take a lickin' and the food keeps on stickin'. That one. And I remembered the peanut dipping sauce we had there. The light bulb went off over my head, and I had my dinner. Kinda, sorta. I googled Thai peanut recipes and found this. So my apologies in advance to all Thais for my bastardization of their wonderful cuisine. One of these days, I'll actually try this authentic recipe for Spicy Peanut Sauce once I can find lemon grass, shrimp paste, palm or coconut sugar, and galangal ginger. But for now, I'm having shrimp with my version of peanut sauce.

Bear with me, since I'm making this up as I go along. The carton in the back left is a quart of my frozen chicken consomme. I set it in a pan of hot water until I got a cup of liquid, then put the leftover frozen block back in the freezer. Next I have peanut butter, salt & pepper, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, curry powder, cilantro, big chunk of ginger, green onions, garlic cloves, chopped peanuts, and key limes.

I enlisted Mr. Hawthorne into helping juice the limes. Now, for my peanut sauce:

First, the cup of chicken consomme went into my mini processor.

Add a heaping tablespoon of peanut butter. I'm going easy since I'm not sure how much.

2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

This is ginger. I keep it frozen so I always have it on hand. When it thaws out, I nuke it for about 20-30 seconds, then I can hand squeeze the juice out very easily.

Ginger juice goes into the processor along with salt and pepper.

I sliced the ginger pieces and added them in. Processed and tasted.

I'm surprised. This is very good. And it needs more peanut butter.

Process until nice and smooth.

Next, I thinly sliced 2 carrots and 1 celery stalk, chopped the green onions, and minced the garlic cloves. Here's a hint for mincing garlic. Use a wet knife. It helps keep the garlic from sticking. Also, the more you mince, the stronger the garlic flavor.

I've had this sticky, sushi rice that I've been meaning to try.

Directions say to wash 1 cup in cold water, then add rice and 1 1/4 cups water to a pan, bring it to a boil, cover and cut the heat to low for 20 minutes. Then let it sit for 10 minutes, covered.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hawthorne peeled and de-veined the shrimp.

I chopped some red onion and the cilantro for garnishes.

Toasted the peanuts.

Here's everything ready to go:

Bowl of shrimp in the back. Olive oil, carrots, celery, green onions, garlic, and 2 teaspoons of curry powder on cutting board on the right. Lime juice and peanut sauce on cutting board on left.

Red onion, roasted peanuts, and cilantro in the back.

Carrots and celery go in the wok first.

Green onions next.

Garlic.

Saute about a minute.

Pour in the shrimp.

Add in the curry powder.

Add in lime juice.

Finally add in peanut butter sauce, and heat through.

The rice turned out perfectly.

Top the rice with the shrimp, veggies, and peanut sauce.

And garnish with the red onion, cilantro, and peanuts.

I'll be honest with you. I was skeptical of this dish seeing as I'm not really a fan of peanut butter.

But it was delicious. The sauce was not overpowering at all. In fact, I could taste the lime, the ginger, the curry powder, and the peanut butter. Everything balanced in a lovely medley of delicate flavors. Color me surprised.

Looking forward to leftovers for lunch tomorrow.