This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Albertsons. All opinions are 100% my own.

Lately, I’ve felt like the days have been playing on a loop. Since we’ve been spending an unprecedented amount of time at home this year, the days are beginning to blur together. We’ve been spending a lot of time in our garden, in fact, we just started planning our fall planting. I challenged myself to a three-week cycling challenge, wherein I’d hop on the bike for 30 minutes a day, every day for 21 days. And to curb feelings of wanderlust, I’ve been turning to my cookbooks to turn our days and nights into adventures around the world. For me, food is the ultimate way to experience a culture in your home. While we may not be able to travel abroad right now, we can still feel transported through dishes.

Leela Punyaratabandhu’s latest cookbook, Flavors of the Southeast Asian Grill, is a beautiful example of culinary travel in one’s own home. Through her book, I’ve been transported to places I’ve only dreamed of visiting: countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. It’s written through Punyaratabandhu’s lens, highlighting her childhood favorites as well as dishes she’s experienced during her travels in adulthood and I appreciate the care she took in developing recipes that not only capture the essence of the dishes but also catering them to be replicated in Western kitchens.

A personal favorite recipe from the book is her Madura Chicken Satay. It manages to bang out loads of flavor in a small package (skewers) and can easily be grilled indoors on a cast iron skillet if you’re out of charcoal. Satay or sate in Indonesian, is a dish that I typically associate with Thailand and I’ll be honest, I did not stop to think that there could be any other version than the standard peanut sauce version--you know what I’m talking about. However, the first time I tried Punyaratabandhu’s Madura Chicken Satay, my eyes were opened to a whole realm of new satay possibilities. Madura is an island off the coast of Java and the satay there features a small diced chicken and kecap manis (a delicious sweet dark soy sauce) and is often served with crispy fried shallots.

I’ve adapted Punyaratabandhu’s classic recipe to utilize one of Moses’ favorite ingredients: cashews. It took nearly nine years to learn this random fact, but now that I know, I’m trying to incorporate them into more dishes. Substituting cashew butter for peanut butter in this recipe works well because the creamy richness is only enhanced by the naturally fatty, nutty, and subtly sweet cashew.

For this recipe, I used both Open Nature® Creamy Cashew Butter, and O Organics® Roasted with Sea Salt Cashews for max cashew flavor and paired them with O Organics® Air Chilled, Boneless, Skinless Chicken Thighs. I first tried O Organics Air Chilled, Boneless, Skinless Chicken Thighs at a dinner at Norah back in March and was blown away by how flavorful and juicy the meat was. As for the cashews, well Moses said they’re just like the cashews he used to get from the nut shop in Windward Mall back in the day, which I’d say is the highest of praise, as they were his absolute favorite snack growing up. I had all of these O Organics® and Open Nature® products delivered from my local Albertsons and I love the convenience of having it delivered straight to my door. It’s been great knowing that I can get all my groceries delivered from my local Albertsons, Vons, and Pavilions stores through their sites Drive Up & Go™ Grocery Delivery.

Cashew Butter Chicken Satay

Adapted from Leela Punyaratabandhu’s Flavors of the Southeast Asian Grill

INGREDIENTS

Marinated Chicken

¼ cup fresh lime juice
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 large garlic cloves, finely grated
1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 pound O Organics® Air Chilled, Boneless, Skinless Chicken ThighsO Organics® Chicken Thighs Boneless Skinless Air Chilled, cut into 1-inch pieces

Sauce

1 dried guajillo chile, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tablespoon lemongrass paste
1 large shallot, minced
3 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon neutral oil
½ cup Open Nature® Cashew Butter, Creamy
1 cup water
1 tablespoon kecap manis
1 tablespoon brown sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt

Garnish

Steamed white rice
Thinly sliced shallots
Knife roll cut cucumber
1 lime, cut into wedges
¼ cup O Organics® Cashew Roasted with Sea Salt, coarsely chopped

FIX

To marinate the chicken, in a bowl, combine the lime juice, salt, garlic, black pepper, and chicken pieces and toss to evenly coat the chicken. Cover and chill for 2 hours to allow the chicken to marinate. Meanwhile, soak 6-8 long bamboo skewers in water.

 To make the sauce, soak the dried guanjillo chile pieces in warm water for 15 minutes or until the chiles have softened. Blend the softened chile with the lemongrass paste, shallot, garlic, neutral oil, cashew butter, water, kecap manis, brown sugar, and kosher salt together in a blender jar. Once smooth, pour into a small saucepan and heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring often. Remove from the heat and reserve ½ a cup of the sauce in a small bowl. 

Remove the chicken from the fridge and mix in the reserved half cup of sauce into the chicken and toss to evenly coat the chicken. Thread the chicken onto the soaked skewers, making sure they’re threaded closely together. Heat a grill pan over medium-high heat and brush the grills with neutral, high-heat oil. Cook the chicken for 10 minutes or so, turning it often and cooking until cooked through (with an internal temperature of 165°F) and charred on all sides. Pour remaining sauce over the grilled chicken. Serve with rice, shallots, cucumbers, lime wedges, and top with chopped cashews.

I buy my O Organics® and Open Nature® products at my local Albertsons, Vons, and Pavilions stores, and you can also find them exclusively at the Albertsons Companies family of stores, including ACME Markets, Jewel-Osco, Vons, Pavilions, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Shaw’s, Star Market, United Supermarkets and Carrs/Safeway. Visit www.albertsons.com/exclusivebrands