CHICKEN AND CASHEWS. 61. Copyright 2011 The Mobile Home Gourmet, MobileHomeGourmet.com, all rights reserved.

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1 CHICKEN AND CASHEWS Serves 4-6. By Dennis W. Viau; from a Chinese restaurant recipe. Chinese American food is all about the sauce. Near where I used to work there was an Asian restaurant where we ate lunch regularly. They made their own sauces and the owner, despite my best efforts, would not reveal those recipes. I brought a little jar with me one day and ordered chicken and cashews, after which I poured the remaining sauce into the jar. A friend said, You re taking that home to your laboratory, aren t you? I did. It took a while, but I figured out the sauce. A lot of people think Chinese cooking is just chopping vegetables and cooking them in a wok. You also need to combine flavors into an excellent sauce. Chinese American fusion 1 (see notes at end) cooking is American, not genuine Chinese. Ingredients: Sauce: ¾ cup (150ml) hot water 2 teaspoons chicken bouillon (or other chicken flavoring) or beef stock for a darker sauce 1 tablespoon sugar ½ tablespoon soy sauce 1 teaspoon sesame oil 1½ to 2 tablespoons corn starch 2 Salt to taste (I find it doesn t need salt, as it gets enough from the soy sauce and the cashews) Ingredients: 2 tablespoon peanut oil (or corn oil) 2 to 4 (depending on size) cloves garlic; finely chopped (or crushed through a garlic press) ¼ teaspoon minced fresh ginger 1 pound (500g) boneless chicken breast meat (dark meat is equally good); cubed 1 carrot; julienned (cut into 1 inch lengths and then cut into matchstick-like pieces) ¾ cup (60g) small broccoli floret pieces ¼ cup (30g) peas 1 small zucchini, about 3 ounces (90g); cubed 3-4 small mushrooms (2 oz. / 60g); sliced or quartered 1 cup (2 oz. / 60g) chopped Chinese cabbage (Napa cabbage) 5-6 green onions (¾ oz. / 20g); green part only, cut into 1 inch (2.5cm) lengths 1 cup (100g) cashew nuts Directions: Combine the sauce ingredients, except the corn starch, and set aside. The water will be hot to dissolve the chicken bouillon. This can cause the corn starch to form lumps. Let it cool before adding the corn starch. Heat the oil in a wok or skillet over a medium-high flame. Add the garlic and ginger; let sizzle in the oil for a few seconds. Add the chicken and sauté only until cooked. Remove the chicken from the wok and set aside. Add the carrot and broccoli and cook about a minute. Add the peas, zucchini, and mushrooms and cook another minute. Finally, add the Napa cabbage and green onions and cook one more minute. Add the corn starch to the cooled sauce mixture and blend well. Pour the sauce into the wok and bring to a boil to thicken. Remove from the heat. Add the cashews and cooked chicken. Mix to coat with the sauce. Serve immediately. Can be served with rice on the side

2 1 STEP-BY-STEP 2 I m not going to deceive you. Doing all this prep work took time. The cooking takes minutes, but chopping and cutting and cubing everything is a lot of work. However, it s the satisfaction at the end that makes it all worthwhile. Dissolve the chicken bouillon in the hot water and then add all but the corn starch. Mix and set aside to cool. The corn starch will be added later when the liquid has cooled enough to avoid forming lumps. 2 Heat the oil in a wok or large skillet, then add the minced garlic and ginger. Let it sizzle only a few seconds, as you don t want to brown it. As the garlic browns it takes on a bitter flavor.

3 3 3 Add the cubed chicken meat and cook over medium-high heat only until the chicken is cooked all the way through. It will be at its most tender at this stage. Don t brown the chicken, which would make it tough. Remove the cooked chicken from the pan and set aside. 4 I like to use a Chinese spider or other strainer to remove the chicken, leaving the juices in the pan. The mushrooms are like little sponges and they ll absorb a lot of this flavorful liquid, as will the zucchini.

4 5 4 Add the denser vegetables first (carrot and broccoli), giving them longer to cook, and then add the softer vegetables (peas, zucchini, and mushrooms). The vegetables in Chinese dishes are typically a little on the crunchy side, or al dente, as the Italians would say. So it only takes a few minutes to cook them enough. 6 The Napa cabbage and green onions will cook the quickest, so add those toward the end.

5 7 5 Add the corn starch to the sauce ingredients you mixed earlier. Add this mixture to the pan and bring just to the boil. The sauce will change from cloudy to a clear dark color. Do not over-boil, as this would break down the corn starch and make the sauce watery. As soon as it is thick, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cooked chicken and add the cashews. Stir to coat all the ingredients and serve immediately. 8 Enjoy. As mentioned in the notes, if you want to serve this over rice and you want the sauce to drizzle down into the rice to flavor it, use 1½ tablespoons corn starch. If you like the sauce to thickly coat all the vegetables and chicken, use 2 tablespoons. For these pictures I used 2 tablespoons corn starch. As a final note: I added no salt (nor any MSG). I think the cashews and soy sauce add enough salt.

6 Conclusion Figuring out the recipe for this sauce was a challenge. As mentioned on page 1, I brought home a jar with some of the sauce in it and I experimented with different mixtures until I thought it was right. I even had a friend taste the final mixture, to get a second opinion. This is an excellent sauce that lightly flavors the chicken, cashews, and vegetables without overpowering anything. I think you ll enjoy it too. Notes 1 I have plenty of Chinese cookbooks. The food is boring, because in China (according to my Chinese friends from Dalien), the Chinese use minimal flavorings. American Chinese food is a fusion of Chinese ingredients with American flavors, which are more robust. 2 Sometimes I like to serve my Chinese American food over white rice, in which case I like the sauce on the thin side so that it drizzles down into the rice. If you like a thicker sauce to stick to the chicken and vegetables, use 2 tablespoons of corn starch. 6