January 6, 2010

Stir Fried Chicken and Cashew Nuts

This one is a great little recipe for those of you who don't have easy access to an Asian food market or shop as the ingredients are readily accessible down your local Tesco's or similar. It's also a really tasty number that is easy to prepare and cook, and takes no time at all.

Serves 2

6-7 garlic cloves (small, or around 4 large)
4-5 baby corns
1/2 small onion
2 round pieces of chopped carrot (about 1/2 cm thick)
Rat ear mushroom (not available in Europe, alternative is Enochi mushroom)
1 cup fresh cashew nuts (unsalted)
1 large dried red chilli
2 spring onion (stalks)
100g chicken (chopped into thin, one inch lengths (roughly))

For the seasoning

2 tbsp cooking oil (vegetable oil, not olive or sesame etc)
1 tsp sugar (caster is fine)
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce

To serve

Bowl of rice for 2 people

First things first, you need to prepare the vegetables. The baby corn needs to be chopped into small round pieces and set on a plate. Next, chop 1/2 a small onion in half again, and separate the layers using your fingers and put on the plate. The mushroom should be chopped roughly into medium sized pieces, and the carrot sliced into thin pieces.



Next the spring onion; you only need to use the stalk here, not the bulb, so cut that off first. Now chop the stalk in half, and half again, until you have pieces about 1 inch long. Finally for this part, the garlic; an easy way of chopping garlic is to use the side of your knife and bash the garlic against the chopping board - this will split the seams of the skin, and make it easy to peel. Chop up into nice small pieces and put all the ingredients on the plate.



If your chilli is not dried, the best thing to do is leave it in the sun for a few hours. Do not try and dry it out in the oven - trust me, the neighbours will not appreciate it! Once dry, chop diagonally into pieces of equal size (about a cm in length) and put in a bowl along with the cashew nuts.


Now for the cooking bit. Place your wok over a high heat and add the vegetable oil, along with the cashew nuts and dried red chilli. Cook until the cashew nuts turn a light brown (keep stirring to avoid burning) and the chilli starts to give off some flavour.

Once cooked (only takes a couple of minutes), remove the cashews and chilli carefully to a bowl, leaving the oil in the wok; this is to retain the flavours of the ingredients for the recipe.


Next, add the garlic and chicken and cook for one minute, until the chicken turns white.



Now add all the vegetables except for the spring onion (carrot, onion, baby corn, mushrooms). Finally, add all the seasoning (sugar, fish sauce, oyster sauce) and turn up the heat, cooking for one more minute and stirring continuously. Turn the heat off, add the spring onion, cashew nuts and chilli, stirring one final time.



Remove to plate along with portion of rice, et voila!


1 comment:

  1. Hello hello,

    This is Pau-Lynn from Malaysia, we took the cooking course together. I did it with my boyfriend Benoit. Nice to know that you're also into Chubbyhubby and EatingAsia (both are GREAT food sites). Do check out rasamalaysia.com though. She's from Malaysia and it's an EXCELLENT website. Good to know that my video recording of you is well appreciated, haha! Safe travels, Pau-Lynn

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