Thai Chicken & Cashews (Gai Pad Med Mamuang Himmapan)

Thai Chicken with Cashew nuts is a fairly mild and very tasty stir fried dish - but you can make it as hot as you like with the addition of more chillies. For those of you that love Thai food this is a real winner, and takes only around 20 minutes to prepare from scratch.   Any leftovers can be cooled then saved in the fridge and reheated for lunch the next day.

This is one I've been working on for a while to get just right, as a lot of recipes for it that I've tried from the internet don't taste quite the same as the restaurant versions. I've tried to make this as close to the restaurant dish as I can get it.

The Chinese and Thai sauces are available in most supermarkets now - the larger supermarkets will also stock the Shaoxing rice wine, but you can use sherry if you can't get the real thing. 

You will need: a wok or large frying pan, a small frying pan, a sharp knife, a rice cooker or saucepan.

Serves:  2
Time: 20 minutes
Difficulty level:  Easy
428 calories per serving (not including rice) 

Ingredients:

1 large chicken breast (sliced into thin-ish slices approx 3-4 cm long)
1 bell pepper - green or red - (chopped into approx 2cm chunks)
1 onion (chopped)
2 spring onions  (sliced into 1cm chunks)
1 large clove garlic (finely chopped)
60g Unsalted cashew nuts 
Thai Jasmine rice (approx 60-90g per portion)

1/2 chicken oxo cube
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp Thai fish sauce 
1 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine  (or use sherry)
2 tsp brown sugar (or you can use white sugar or palm sugar)
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 red chilli (chopped into large 1cm chunks)  or use a couple of small dried chillies (use more if you like it hot)
1 tbsp vegetable or ground nut oil


Method:

1. Wash your rice then cook as per cooking instructions. I use a microwave rice cooker and heat in the microwave for 17 minutes with enough water to cover the rice plus 1cm above.
2.  Boil the kettle with at least a cup full of water in it. 
3. In a small dry frying pan or skillet, place the cashew nuts, and roast on a high heat for 5 minutes or until starting to turn brown - shake pan occasionally to roast both sides. Remove from frying pan and put aside.
4.  In a large frying pan or wok, heat the oil on a high heat.  Add the sliced chicken and stir fry until just cooked. Add the garlic, chilli, red pepper, and onion, and stir fry for a couple of minutes.
5.  Add the soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, rice wine and brown sugar, and reduce a little on high heat.  
6. Put half a cup of boiling water into a jug, and crumble in the chicken oxo cube.   Slowly add a little of the chicken stock to the frying pan to loosen the sauce.  You will not need all of the stock, probably only a couple of tablespoons.
7. Add the spring onions and the roasted cashew nuts. Stir fry for about 1 minute.
8. Serve with the steamed rice.
9. If you don't like the chilli heat, make sure you pick out the chilli chunks before eating.