Chicken and Cashew Nuts Stir Fry

Have you ever seen cashew nut fruits? They look just like apple with the seeds hanging at the bottoms. Cashew nuts are really good source of healthy monounsaturated fat that promotes good cardiovascular health. They are also rich in antioxidants which are really great for our body.

We love stir fry chicken with cashew nuts, in the sweet and mild chili paste. It?s an authentic Thai dish we love and it is very easy to make. Don?t feel discourage when you see that we use authentic ingredients like Thai chili paste which might not be easy to find in your area. If you have an access to Thai or Asian grocery store, then it?s good. If you don?t, I will help you make the easy homemade paste. Thai chili paste is so easy to make and you can store them in refrigerator for really long time.

Once you have this spicy and sweet chili paste, and then we can make this yummy dish.

Thai chili paste:

½ cup tamarind paste

1/3 cup dried shrimp- ground ? optional

1/3 cup sliced garlic

1 cup shallots

10 dried red chili peppers- discarded seed

½ cup sugar

5 tbsp salt or 2 tsp salt

1/3 cup peanut butter

½ cup water

1 cup oil

Heat a wok over the medium heat and add oil.

Add garlic and sauté until lightly yellow.

Add chilies and fry for few second. Do not let it burn.

Add shallot and sauté until soft and transparent.

Turn off the heat. Transfer the sauté ingredient in the blender with 1/2 cup of water and blend until smooth paste.

Heat the same wok with the remaining oil over the medium heat. Add the paste back to the pan.

Add ground dried shrimp, sugar, tamarind paste, fish sauce (or salt), and peanut butter.

Stir for 20-30 minutes, until the mixture become think and grainy and a thin layer of oil appear on the surface.

Cool down and store in the clean jar in refrigerator and use whenever you want.

Now that we have the chili paste, grasp a wok!

Chicken and Cashew Nuts Stir Fry

Ingredients: (4 servings)

300 gm boneless chicken- sliced

50 gm cashew nut- halved

1 onion- sliced

4 cloves garlic- crushed

4 dried red chilies

1 tbsp Thai chili paste

1 tsp sugar

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp fish sauce or to taste

2 tbsp oil

Heat oil in the pan over the medium-high heat and add oil.

Add cashew nuts, and fry until golden brown then remove from the pan and keep aside.

Add dried chili and fry until lightly burn then remove from the pan and keep aside.

Add garlic and sauté until golden brown.

Add chicken and stir for few second.

Add chili paste, sugar, soy sauce and fish sauce and stir for 5 minutes or until chicken is cooked. Add 2-3 tbsp of water of it is too dry.

Add onion and stir for 1 minute.

Add fried cashew nuts and fried chilies and mix well.

Serve this delicious stir fried chicken and cashew nuts over rice with your favourite vegetable side dish.