I'm not really sure why I decided I wanted to try making Cashew Chicken this week. But, I got it in my head, and I mostly had everything I needed except cashews (or so I thought).
So, Googling, Pinterest, and Yummly searching done and I ended up (mostly) with The Pioneer Woman's Cashew Chicken recipe. With input from a few cooking friends about whether substituting red pepper and bok choy was a good idea, I was ready to try my hand at this dish.
With any kind of stir-fry type dish, I follow the rule of having everything sliced, diced, measured and in the order I will be using them.
Starting with cubing up chicken thighs.
The first replacements were red peppers and the white parts of bok choy (replacing green peppers and water chestnuts respectively). I minced the garlic, and at the last moment decided to get lazy and use minced ginger from a tube.
No substitute in the sauce, which was thick and syrupy and smelled wonderful. The recipe called for dry sherry to deglaze the pan, but I only had cream sherry, so I substituted sherry vinegar. I wouldn't make that mistake again, it was tangier than it should have been. Without the dry sherry I will either use chicken broth or dry white wine if I have it. Finally, the corn starch and soy sauce slurry to use at the end of the dish.
As soon as everything is lined up and ready to go is when I start my rice. I have had this rice cooker for over 30 years! I wonder if Fuji's 5 and Dime is still on Pacific Avenue in Tacoma, WA. That's where I got this. Made to last.
And, of course, I always use Calrose rice.
Then it was time to start cooking.
Chicken first, maybe a little too crowded, but it turned out all right. No, I don't have a wok. But this turned out fine.
The recipe doesn't say to remove the chicken but I did because I wanted to sauté the garlic and ginger a little bit before adding the veggies. Once the garlic and ginger were fragrant (about 30 seconds) in went the red pepper and sliced bok choy. I diverged from the recipe here a little bit. Although the bok choy was replacing the water chestnuts, I wanted it to cook a little more so added at this stage instead of at the end.
After 3 minutes or so the veggies were hot but still a little crispy, and I deglazed the pan with the sherry vinegar, stirring up all the brown bits.
In went the sauce and the mixture was brought back to a boil, and I boiled it about a minute, then added the cornstarch slurry. After it was all well stirred together, in went the cashews.
One last stir to make sure everything was coated with the sauce, and it was time to serve it over the perfectly cooked rice. I chopped up fresh cilantro to top it.
I would absolutely make this again, keeping my same modifications with the exception of the sherry vinegar. Like I said above, next time I would use chicken broth or dry white wine.
The fragrance was incredible, and every bite had a little bit of everything to taste.
The link to the recipe I used is:
Labels: Main Dish
