Slow Cooker Chicken Satay

April. The taxes. The bakery grossed seventy-six thousand in 2018 — I know this already, Sofia told me in November — but the tax return makes it official, real, a number that the government acknowledges, a number that says: Maria Elena Gutierrez, former dishwasher, former maquiladora worker, former undocumented immigrant, earned seventy-six thousand dollars from a bakery named for her mother in a city that gave her a chance. I sign the tax return and I think about the naturalization certificate in my purse and I think: this is what that certificate bought. Not just the right to vote. The right to earn. The right to build. The right to sign my name on a tax return and have the government say: you exist. You contributed. You count.

Sofia has passed the farmers' market into a routine: she manages it alone now, with Maricela helping. I don't go anymore. I am in the bakery, making the product that Sofia sells, and the division of labor is the division that makes sense — the maker and the seller, the kitchen and the market, the old and the new. We are partners. I have a thirteen-year-old partner. The partnership is the best business decision I have ever made, and I didn't make it — it made itself, the way dough makes itself, the way the yeast decides to rise and you don't have to tell it and the rising is the decision and the decision is the life.

I made pollo en pipiín this week — chicken in a pumpkin seed sauce, the Pueblan dish that is Doña Pilar's specialty and that she taught me in her kitchen last month, standing side by side, the way women teach each other — not with textbooks but with hands, not with measurements but with taste, not with instructions but with the particular form of love that says: here, try this, now make it yours. The pipiín is green and earthy and rich, the pumpkin seeds giving it a depth that no nut or cream can match, and the dish tastes like a forest, like a garden, like the inside of a seed that contains a tree.

Diego is preparing for the state science fair. His district win qualified him. He is upgrading his solar-wind hybrid — adding sensors, refining the design, running calculations that make my head spin but that he explains with the patience of a teacher who loves his subject and loves his student (me) and understands that the student needs the explanation to start from zero every time because the student is a baker and not a physicist and the gap between flour and photovoltaic cells is the gap between two beautiful forms of making, both of which transform the raw into the useful.

The week that Doña Pilar taught me her pipiín, I understood something I already knew but needed to feel again: that the richest sauces are the ones built from ground seeds, patience, and the particular attention of someone who loves you enough to stand beside you. When I came home and wanted to carry that lesson into a dish I could make without standing over the stove — a dish that would cook quietly while I signed tax returns and listened to Diego explain photovoltaics — this slow cooker satay was the answer. The sauce is nutty and deep, the chicken surrenders into it the way good things surrender into time, and the whole pot asks almost nothing of you except the willingness to let it work.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 4 hrs | Total Time: 4 hrs 15 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup low-sodium soy sauce
3 tablespoons lime juice (about 2 limes)
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon sesame oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup coconut milk
2 green onions, sliced (for garnish)
2 tablespoons chopped roasted peanuts (for garnish)
Cooked rice or rice noodles, for serving

Instructions

Build the sauce. In a medium bowl, whisk together peanut butter, soy sauce, lime juice, honey, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes, chicken broth, and coconut milk until smooth and fully combined.
Layer the slow cooker. Place chicken thighs in a single layer in the slow cooker. Pour the peanut sauce evenly over the top, turning the pieces once so they are well coated.
Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 4 hours or on HIGH for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, until the chicken is tender and cooked through (internal temperature 165°F).
Shred or slice. Remove chicken from the slow cooker. Shred with two forks or slice into strips. Return to the pot and stir to coat in the sauce.
Finish the sauce. If the sauce is thinner than you like, transfer it to a small saucepan and simmer over medium heat for 5–8 minutes until it thickens slightly, then pour back over the chicken.
Serve. Spoon chicken and sauce over rice or rice noodles. Garnish with sliced green onions and chopped roasted peanuts. Serve with extra lime wedges if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slow Cooker Chicken Satay — The Lesson Do├▒a Pilar Taught Me With Her Hands