Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Easy Peasy Cashew Chicken

Haven't done one of these in a while, eh?
It's not that I have not been cooking, it's just that since I can't go out grocery shopping, and my mom was having digestion problems and I personally don't have the time to think about cooking creative and complicated dishes, I have been cooking only simple, boring dishes lately. Like plain soups (not even the creamy kind), omelettes and fried stuff.

Yesterday, however, what started out as a day with nothing to eat (coz Taufik couldnt go to buy groceries coz he sent his car for service), ended up with me making cashew chicken.
I had initially asked my mom to go to the compound's mini market to buy some chicken so that we could make chicken soup. She came back with a pack of frozen chicken breasts and a large potato.
I started cutting up the chicken and it turned out that there was too much chicken for soup, so I decided to set aside half of it for 'something else'. The potato was also too big, so I decided to also set half of it aside for 'something else'.
After making the chicken soup, I looked at the chicken breasts, half a potato, and some cashew nuts I had in the cupboard, I decided, oh well, why not Cashew Chicken, since I haven't had that in a while..

Easy Peasy Cashew Chicken

200grams Chicken Breasts (diced/cut up into bite sized pieces)
1tbsp. dark soy sauce (for color)
2tbsp. sweet soy sauce (for sweetness, add more if you like)
1tbsp, oyster sauce (for flavor)
1 clove garlic (finely chopped)
1 small potato (or half a large potato, cut in small dices, deep fried)
1 fistful of cashew nuts (blanched or dry roasted, u can use as much as u like)
1 large onion (diced into large pieces)
5 stalks of dried chillies (optional, cut into 1/4 inch pieces, remove seeds if you want it less spicy)

Marinate chicken in dark soy sauce, sweet soy sauce and oyster sauce.
Heat 2 tablespoons of cooking oil in a frying pan or wok, saute the garlic till fragrant. Add in the chicken with all the marinade and stir fry. Once chicken pieces are thoroughly cooked, add in the fried potatoes, cashew nuts, diced onions and dried chillies. Stir fry to evenly coat everything in sauce. Add more sweet soy sauce if you like.
Serve with white rice.

Variations: Add diced bell peppers. Substitute chicken with beef or batter fried fish.

Sorry, no pictures. I didn't have time to take them.
Because I was cooking for kids, I omitted the chillies.
This dish served 3 adults and 3 kids. Taufik would pick out the cashews and put them in my plate, while I would pick out the onions and put them in his plate. The kids would eat the potatoes.
It should taste slightly sweet&salty (and a little spicy if you added the dried chillies). This dish also goes well with rice porridge, though I would make extra marinade to add more sauce to it.



Edited on July 5th 2006:
I made Cashew Chicken again today. This time I added the dried chillies, and took a picture. So this is what it's supposed to look like ...


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