Sesame Cashew Chicken Stir Fry


Melissa Clarke's style of cooking from her book, Dinner: Changing the Game, is how I cooked most of the time when I worked full time. A lot of highly flavorful stir fries and Asian inspired dishes with a lot of mains that required a carb like rice or pasta on the side to make the meal complete. I guess I default to the kind of cooking I grew up eating when I have to cook on the go and don't have hours to spend on meal planning or grocery shopping. But when I do have loads of time, I lean towards cooking Californian cuisine where the emphasis is on fresh produce and most meals are very low carb. Both styles of cooking have their merits and I'm happy eating either of them anytime.


This is my second recipe from Melissa Clarke's book and it's a winner too. How can one go wrong when there's loads of sesame oil, abundant ginger, garlic and other aromatics to make your house smell good with a deliciously sweet and sour sauce that coats each morsel of chicken? Nothing better to go with rice when you're craving that kind of greasy, takeout Asian food but would rather make it yourself.

Recipe adapted from Dinner: Changing the Game, Melissa Clarke
Makes 5 servings

Ingredients:
4 tbsp sesame oil
2 inch piece ginger, cut into matchsticks
8 fat garlic cloves, sliced medium-thin
2 bunches scallions, cut into 2" piece on the diagonal
5 dried red chiles
1 1/4 lb boneless & skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite sized pieces
1/2 cup cashews
1/3 cup mirin
1/3 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
6 small deglet noor dates, sliced into six slices each
3 cups basil leaves, large leaves roughly torn


Procedure:
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a wide 12" saute pan on high for 2 minutes till almost smoking hot and add the ginger and garlic slices and fry for 1-2 minutes till turning light golden brown. Add scallions and red chiles and saute for 2 more minutes. Add 2 more tbsp oil and add chicken & cashews and stir fry for 4-5 minutes till the cashews are starting to get a little brown, making sure to scrape the bottom constantly too (but don't worry if it starts to look terribly dark, we'll be adding sauce and scraping it up soon). Add miring, soy sauce, rice vinegar and sliced dates and reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 6 minutes, scraping the bottom to get every caramelized bit, till the sauce becomes syrupy and the chicken is cooked through. Take it off heat and fold in the basil leaves. Serve with rice or rice noodles.


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