chicken cashew nut
2 min readThere isn’t another dish that represents solid, dependable Chinese food better than this one.
Cooked with plenty of fresh vegetables, Chicken Cashew Nut is one of those all-time favourites that friends sheepishly admit to ordering every time they have Chinese because they just know it’ll be good’. But we reckon that you will never order out again after trying our super-easy and lush home-cooked version.
Serves 2200g skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized cubes 2% tbsp vegetable oil tbsp finely diced ginger 4 button mushrooms, halved green pepper, red pepper and yellow pepper, deseeded and chopped (or just one colour, if you prefer) 2 onion, roughly chopped 80g cashew nuts steamed jasmine rice, to serve for the marinade 12 tsp bicarbonate of soda 34 tsp cornflour 2 pinches salt tsp light soy sauce 12 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine for the sauce 1%2 tbsp oyster sauce 12 tsp Shaoxing rice wine yould 3 pinches ground white pepper 1 Put the chicken into a bowl, add the marinade ingredients and 1/2 tablespoon water and stir well Cover and chill for at least 20 minutes.
Heat 11/2 tablespoons of the oil in a small saucepan over a medium heat. When a cashew dropped into the oil sizzles but does not brown, add the remaining nuts and shallow-fry for a few minutes until golden brown. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.
3 Put all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl, add 11/2 tablespoons water, then stir well and set aside.
4 Heat 1/2 tablespoon of the oil in a wok over a high heat and stir-fry the ginger until fragrant. Add the mushrooms and 1 tablespoon water and stir-fry until all the water has evaporated. Add the pep-pers, onion and a further tablespoon of water, then reduce the heat to medium and stir-fry until the water has evaporated. Scoop the vegetables out of the wok and set aside.
5 Wipe the wok with kitchen paper and place over high heat. Add the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of oil and stir-fry the chicken, stopping occasionally for few seconds to spread the chicken out in a single layer on the base of the wok until the chicken is white, slightly singed and bouncy. Return the vegetables to the wok and stir-fry for 30 seconds.
6 Reduce the heat to medium, stir in the sauce and three-quarters of the cashew nuts and stir-fry for 1 minute to warm the sauce through. Serve with steamed rice, sprinkling the remaining cashews on top.
has softened slightly. Remove from the heat and leave the rice to stand for 3 minutes before drizzling soy sauce on top and digging in.
