July Daring Cooks Challenge: Cooking with Nut Butters

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

This is my first Daring Cooks challenge and I could not be happier with the topic! At home I am never without nuts. My husband and I are runners and he is a triathlete and we are always looking for ways to incorporate the great nutritional value of nuts in a way other than simply consuming a handful. Nuts offer protein, energy, potassium, iron, calcium, lowers bad cholesterol, and so on and so forth. Any type of nut can be used, cashew, peanut, almond, pecan, hazelnut, the list goes on! Nut butters actually do not contain any butter. Oil can be added if the desired consistency is smoother. In which case the oil can be the corresponding nut oil, or a light vegetable oil. The nuts can be roasted first in the oven and salt can be added to taste. Making your own really cuts down on costs and you are in total control of how much oil and salt to use (if any) and all you need is a food processor.

The challenge is to use the nut butter is a savory dish. I chose to make Chicken with Curried Tomato Almond Sauce. The first step is to make the almond butter. Almond butter is so delicious and usually quite expensive at the grocery store. The recipe calls for 1/3 a cup of almond butter. That means I had to use 2/3 cup of almonds. I simply roasted the almonds for about 10 minutes in the oven and then put it in the food processor for about 5 minutes.

It looks chunky and like it will never start to form a paste, but keep going and it will end up looking like this:

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil

4 (6 oz / 170 g) boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

Salt to taste

Spice Blend:

1.5 tablespoons (20 ml) garam masala seasoning

1 teaspoon (5 ml) ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon (1 ml) black pepper

Sauce:

4 tablespoons (60 ml) butter

1 large onion, cut in half pole to pole

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 (15-ounce/425 g) can tomato sauce

⅓ cup (80 ml) almond butter

⅓ cup (80 ml) milk

½ to ¾ cup (120 to 180 ml) chicken broth or water, more as needed

1 cup (240 ml) frozen peas (optional)

Hot basmati rice for serving

Chopped parsley (optional garnish)

Sliced almonds (optional garnish)

Directions:

1. Cook the chicken. If desired, pound chicken to ¼ inch (6 mm) thickness to promote even cooking. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper to taste. Heat 1 teaspoon (5 ml) olive oil a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add half the chicken; sauté 3 to 5 minutes on each side or until cooked through. Cook the chicken in 2 batches, adding more oil if needed for second batch. Dice chicken into bite-sized pieces; set aside on clean plate and keep warm.

2. Prepare spice blend. Stir garam masala, ginger, cinnamon, and pepper together in a small bowl. Set aside.

3. Melt the butter in large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook gently for several minutes to infuse the butter with onion flavor. Keep the heat low to avoid burning the butter; a little color is fine. Add the spice blend and garlic and cook for 1 minute or till fragrant, stirring constantly. Add the tomato sauce, stir well, and bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer. Whisk in almond butter and milk until thoroughly combined with tomato sauce. The almond butter is thick so it takes a while to make a smooth sauce. Return to simmer. Add broth (or water) to sauce to reach desired consistency; return to simmer. Add more broth (or water) as needed to thin sauce as desired.

4. Remove onion from sauce and discard. Stir frozen peas (if using) into sauce. Transfer sliced chicken to sauce. Simmer gently for a few minutes until peas and chicken are heated through.

5. Serve chicken and sauce over rice. Garnish with chopped parsley and/or sliced almonds if desired.

Notes on the recipe:

You can use any protein, I ended up using half chicken and half shrimp. For the spice blend, Garam Masala seasoning can be hard to find but I was able to locate it at Whole Foods on the shelf with all the other dry seasonings. Garam Masala is an Indian spice blend consisting of black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, cumin, and coriander. If you can't find it, there are recipes online on how to make it at home. I also used fresh ginger instead of ginger powder. As for the onion, I wanted to leave it in the recipe so instead of cutting it from pole to pole, I brunoise the onion and kept it in with the butter and garlic. I definitely added chicken broth because after the almond butter was added it was very thick. I think I added about half a cup but it could have used more. I also prefer my curry with a little more of a kick to it so next time I may add so jalepeno but adding Sriracha did the trick, I mean, what doesn't taste better with Sriracha?

This was really a delicious recipe and the almond butter was a great way to thicken up a sauce! I think it will have to end up in our regular weekly rotation.