When I was growing up in Serbia, nuts were seldom used in savory dishes, but mostly in pastries, cakes, tortes, or crepes. Times have changed and I can see the big-city dwellers using peanuts as a result of the Thai influence, but my town would rebel for sure. Peanut butter is an adventure when you are raised on Nutella or Eurocreme.
The idea of cooking the same dish all over the world appealed to me, and I joined the Daring Cooks. The first challenge for me was nut butters. Since I left Serbia I have moved past the traditional and embraced international cuisine. But I rarely cook with nut butters. OK. Somebody has thrown the glove to me. I can do this.
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.
I cooked three dishes out of four. We loved two, and were  unimpressed by one. And making nut butters without the food processor is a major pain. Costco’s appliances look mighty good right now.
All the recipes can be downloaded here in PDF.
Asian Chicken Salad With Cashew Butter
The only changes I made were substituting zucchini for cucumber, rice vinegar fro vinegar, adding shredded carrots, and using yellow bell pepper instead of red. The dish was wonderful, light, and well rounded in flavors.
I made my own cashew butter using a mini food chopper.
Chicken With Curried Tomato and Almond Sauce
I used walnut butter and home-made garam masala. The spice was just right, and we enjoyed this dish tremendously.
Chicken with Pecan Cream and Mushrooms
I used cashew butter instead of pecan. The sauce was pretty bland, and the chicken breast was somewhat dry. A mediocre dish. Chicken thighs would have been a better choice.
