Cashew Chicken review

It seems everyone enjoyed the Cashew Chicken dinner! This is very exciting.

I’ll start with the things I did differently.

*We forgot to defrost the chicken. We had chicken out, but we were worried it was going to go bad, so we used it on Monday and then forgot to take out the second batch. Once I realized this, I placed it in a Ziploc bag and put it in the sink with as close to room temperature as possible. I did this for about 15 minutes. It was thawed enough that I could, with some muscle, slice the chicken into thin strips.

*I didn’t have red wine vinegar, so I used a mixture of plain rice wine vinegar, as well as "seasoned" rice wine vinegar. I was worried about this flavor overpowering the dish, so I put just a splash of cider vinegar in.

*We used Jasmine rice. Yum.

*Followed Denise’s tip (see below) and rinsed the salted cashews in water before adding them to the dish.

*To bulk up the meal for a few extra servings-we had company-I added extra carrots and peppers, I needed an extra tablespoon of Hoisin sauce to coat it all completely.

Now for your feedback (my comments will be in italics):

Dancer in DC:
Special note from the Chinese Specialist - DON'T substitute powdered ginger for fresh. They are very different, and you won't get the same flavor. I've found that powdered is really only worthwhile for desserts, as when you pair it with cinnamon & nutmeg. And as Scott said in the {originalrecipe}, it's very inexpensive to buy fresh. Also, you can peel it with a regular vegetable peeler, and grate on a generic cheese grater if you don't have a microplane.

(Note from Scott E: To stretch the use of your ginger, you can use the peel and if you have a bit left over, that as well to make a simple ginger syrup for use in tea or lemonade. Put equal amounts of water and sugar (1 cup to 1 cup, etc) in a saucepan. If you want a stronger ginger flavored syrup add the peels and left over gingers bits right away, bring to a boil, stir until sugar is dissolved. If you want a milder ginger flavor, bring to a boil, dissolve the sugar, remove from the heat and add the ginger bits. Once the mixture is cool, pour through a strainer, lined with either cheese cloth or a cut open coffee filter, to remove bits. Refrigerate. Great for sweetening tea, mint tea and lemonade!!!)


Lady Brandenburg:
I can't believe we ate the WHOLE thing!!!

We are stuffed! But damn was that good. I wouldn't change a thing about the recipe. Here are some comments:

1) We used dry sherry instead of red wine vinegar. It said sherry or the vinegar, but we didn't know whether to use sweet or dry. In the end, I don't think it make a huge taste difference. I think it's just there to help the chicken soak up the sesame oil.

(Note from Scott E: I’m not really sure the full purpose of the vinegar, as I said, I used two types of vinegar. Usually vinegar, when added to a dish will make other flavors “POP.” I’m guessing you can use a whole different varieties, with the exception of Balsamic.)

2) It doesn't say in the recipe when to add the jalepeno pepper - so we added it when we added the chicken. It was a good amount of spice. We like spicy, so we added quite a bit of red pepper flakes. YUM!

(Note from Scott E: In the recipe, I combined the green and jalepeno and say ‘add the peppers.’ Will clarify that for future use.)

3) We assumed that once you add the spices and oil to the chicken you were to "shloop" it together, so that's what I did. After I put my hands in the raw chicken to coat it, I realized I could have saved the salmonella risk and used a wooden spoon or spatula. Duh. It would have accomplished the same thing.

4) We let the chicken "marinate" for a good ten minutes or so. I think I used more than an inch of ginger (we LOVE ginger) and the chicken really absorbed all the flavor.

(Note from Scott E: I let mine go for about 15 minutes. Not a problem. You do want to be careful with raw meat and vinegar. Vinegar can start to "cook" the meat. It starts immediately. You may have noticed the chicken change color when the vinegar, oil, spice mixture was added, a light cloudy texture. That's the weird science of it. The caution would be not to let this sit too long, maybe 20 minutes tops. I don't know what would happen, if anything, that's why this is a caution and not a "Rule.")

All in all, a great recipe and a great success. With our new knives I was able to slice regular chicken breast into tenderloin-size pieces. I would not have wanted to attempt that with our old dull knives (our old knives just tore meat apart rather than chopping it). Buying the chicken already sliced up is a good suggestion.

We ate ALL of it - but we were piggys. It really does make enough for about three very large servings. We shouldn't have split the last big pile - it was just SO damn good! Definitely a recipe I would make for company.

By the way, we used jasmine rice, which is my favorite. I think the brand is Mahatma. I think the extra flavor in jasmine rice really adds to any dish, and it's nice and sticky, which I like.

Thanks Scott! It was a GREAT dinner!!!!

One More thing: They didn't have unsalted cashews at the Safeway I went to, so I got salted ones and just sort of rinsed them in the sink and let them dry on paper towels. That worked out just fine.

The Kara:
I'm going shopping today - what are the chances that brown rice vinegar can be substituted? I'll probably suck it up and buy the red wine vinegar or sherry anyway but just thought I'd ask. Can't wait to Cook AND EAT with you!

(Note from Scott E: See notes above regarding vinegars. You could have used the brown rice vinegar, no problems there.)

To cut down on the time b/c I'm lazy I bought the carrots and peppers pre-cut (I know, I know, but I figured this will be more encouragement for me to actually make the dish).

(Note from Scott E: Rock on, do what you wanna do in terms of making cooking easier and fun.)

So I looked again at the recipe and decided I can have more chicken if I don't make it with the rice (and I'm not a big rice fan anyway). What do you think about adding a side of string beans or even broccoli instead of rice or is the rice a 'must-have'?

(Note from Scott E: The rice is just there as a ‘traditional’ Chinese take out staple. I think adding extra veggies to bulk the dish up is a great idea!)

Here's what happened - I came home and had to throw some laundry in so I know EXACTLY how much time the whole cooking affair took (please know that I am NOT a cook by any estimation) and with cheating (I bought pre-cut peppers and carrots) it took just over 30 minutes. The meal was delish - I forgot to add in the jalepeno pepper, but otherwise followed it exactly (and with a healthy helping of the red pepper found it spicy enough for my liking). I am also trying to cut down on the carbs, so I added frozen 'stir fry' veggies as my side dish and did eek out 4 servings (had 2 tonight and froze the other individual servings for later). LOVED it and can't wait to hear what everyone else did with their dishes! (and I'm not a big exclamation point person - it just seems that way b/c I'm excited about cooking!)

Terri L.
YUMMMM!!! But when do I add the jalapeno? I added it with the chicken in the wok.

(Note from Scott E: See note above about peppers.)

I also LOVE chunks of onion in a spicy Chinese dish, so I added half a medium onion, right after the chicken, but before the bell pepper so that the onion wasn't too limp, but not to strong.

(Note from Scott E: Good idea. Adding in extra goodies to make the dish more to your liking.)

And instead of rice, I prefer rice sticks. If you immerse the rice sticks in hot water for half the time the package directions suggest, they will absorb some of the liquid from the chix mix making everything that much more tasty.

(Note from Scott E: I’m not familiar with Rice Sticks. Can you let us know what they are? I’m sure they were great with the dinner.)

An excellent dinner. I think I barely have enough left over for tomorrow's dinner! Talk about being a PIG!!

After kitchen clean up (well, not the non-dishwasher dishes), I treated myself to fortune cookies. Here's my favorite fortune (if you tell someone, does a fortune come true?? awe, who cares?! I wanna share, besides, it seems to be more of a statement than a fortune): Beauty is in your heart, let it out, let it beat, give yourself a treat. HA! I choose syrah for now, and carrot cake later, for my treat!

(Note from Scott E: ROCK ON!)

Thank you all for participating in this fun experiment. I'll begin planning for the next "event." If you have further comments, please leave them below by clicking on X# Comments in the timestamp right below this paragraph!