My Peanut Sauce

Petty picture, I know. Tastes better than it looks.

Peanut sauce is the perfect Summer food. Once it is made it is happy to hang out in the fridge until needed for a quick meal.

Ideas:
You can toss it with spaghetti noodles and veggies for peanut noodles.
Dip Vietnamese salad rolls into it
Thin with a little additional water or vinegar and use as a salad dressing.
Drizzle over a bowl of rice and veggies
A dip and marinate for chicken or pork skewers.
Spread on bread and add some turkey (seriously! Sounds weird, but it is good)
Eat off of the spoon (the most civilized choice, of course.)

There are endless ways to make peanut sauce, I like to use fish sauce in mine, but soy or plain salt would also be good. I have even seen recipes using beer! The key is having a balance between sweet, salty, sour and spicy. Some peanutbutters have sugar added, so there is no need to add additional sweetener, some are already salty, so go easy on the soy or fish sauce. Some people heat their sauce up, others use a blender or just a fork.

You get my drift.

My Peanut Sauce
1 cup natural, chunky peanutbutter
1 garlic clove mashed
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon sambal sauce (or more, depending on my mood)
juice of one lime (or maybe more...)
about 1/4 cup fish sauce
1 cup water

1. Heat a small sauce pan over medium heat. Add in a spoonful of peanutbutter and heat until some of the oil releases. Add in garlic and cook for about one minute. This makes the garlic a little less sharp, but you don't have to do it.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients. It will be watery, chunky and ugly at first. As it heats and you stir the sauce will come together smoothly.
3. Taste and adjust seasonings.

This keeps in the fridge for about 2 weeks.