Sate babe for my baby

My husband really loves sate babe, especially the peanut-buttery sauce that goes with it. His birthday is fast approaching and I want to surprise him by cooking his favorite dish. – Ms. D

That’s one of my fave Indonesian dishes, too! The nutty, crunchy peanut butter sauce is the secret to this barbecued chicken gastronomy, so let’s concentrate on making the mouth-watering sauce. Meanwhile, marinate bite-size cuts of chicken in light soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, calamansi juice and ginger bits to prepare it for a few minutes of browning under the broiler racks.

First, cook a small, minced red onion and a small, minced garlic in a little water over medium heat until they become translucent. Slowly add a cup of water and dissolve in this mixture the following spices: a tablespoon of chili powder, a teaspoon of cumin, 1/2 teaspoon each of ground turmeric, paprika, curry powder, thyme and 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Simmer for two minutes. Transfer the spice mixture to a food processor and add a cup of peanut butter, 1/2 cup of thick maple syrup, two tablespoons each of vinegar, light soy sauce and powdered ginger and a tablespoon of sesame oil. Puree the entire mixture until smooth.

Brown the marinated chicken under a broiler for five minutes and transfer to a heated wok. Add the processed peanut butter mixture to the wok to completely coat the chicken.

If you find the sauce to be watered down, add a half-cup of chunky peanut butter and let it fully incorporate into the sauce before removing.

Don’t forget to skewer the cooked chicken for an authentic sate babe birthday dish!

* * * No Gadgets, No-Bake Fuss

I don’t have an oven so I’m particularly interested in any no-bake recipes that are simple, easy and quick to make without many gadgets to be used. I remember reading a recipe for crema de fruta, but couldn’t find that newspaper issue. I also heard you can make a blueberry cheesecake without baking. Do you happen to have the recipes for these and other pastries? How can I access these recipes from your site? – Ma. Lourdes P. Bautista

Can you please e-mail me the recipe for blueberry cheesecake, ala Red Ribbon version? Thank you. – Bev888

Can you send me no-bake recipes for pastries and cakes that I can sell for supplemental income? – Dodong Cabreros

I would like to know the recipe of no-bake cheesecake. I tried doing this before but it failed to mold firmly. I used gelatin. – Clarisse Salazar

Chickmail

If you were able to visit our site, then you should have been able to access the recipes we’ve compiled by clicking on the "Library" icon, followed by the "Recipes" button.

Crema de Fruta is certainly up there, but we apologize for not putting up the latest additions, which many of our readers have been requesting.

The no-bake recipes we featured earlier this year (check out Philippine STAR’s Leisure archives dated March 21, 2001) were for the world’s best fudge balls, delicious refrigerated choco-mallow pies and caramel popcorn treats.

Although most cheesecake recipes I know use eggs and require baking, as well as a pie crust that requires an hour of baking, you can probably substitute some ingredients for store-bought items that have already been pre-baked for you.

Try this blueberry cheesecake on Graham cracker crust recipe and see whether you can get away from the help of most handy baking tools:

Combine two cups of finely crushed Graham crackers and half-a-cup of melted butter until the crumbs are thoroughly coated. Press the crumbs onto the bottom of a nine-inch tart pan with a removable side rim (like a springform pan) and chill for an hour. (Make sure that the freezing process hardens your pie crust enough so that when the filling is added, the dough doesn’t become soggy.)

For the improvised filling, beat by hand two 8-oz. packages of cream cheese and a cup of sugar until they become fluffy. At this point, if you want your cheesecake to have a lighter consistency similar to a torte, you can add a cup of store-bought whipped cream (if using sweetened table cream, beat until fluffy).

Spread the entire mixture on the frozen cookie crust and mound three cups of fresh blueberries (if using canned blueberries, be sure to drain the syrup first!) on top. Remove the pan rim and serve. Have a happy no-bake cheesecake day!

P.S. Sorry, we can’t e-mail recipes to individual readers because there are simply too many requests. What we can do is load the more popular requests into the Recipe Cache on our website which everyone can view. We promise to do this as soon as we can!

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Visit our website at http://www.whollymollytips.com. Click on "Library" for easy recipes and cool products. Click on "Ask Molly" for all queries.