Home Cook Thai Dinner

My love for tomyam expanded when I moved to Copenhagen. Never knew I like it so much until I realize apparently I miss tomyam soup (even just after 2 days having one). Luckily, it's not hard to make with ready-made tomyam paste. There're also a lot of Thai shop selling thai products so I have no concern in finding more authentic ingredients (of course I have to pay more though).

Tomyam soup is easy but I can't bring myself to just having soup without any 'more decent' main course so this round, I settled to chicken cashew nut. American-Chinese dish but fairly easy to make. I can't find 'raw' cashew nut but the salted ones will work fine and they're available almost everywhere.

Ingredient (as shown in picture): cashew nut, chicken (I cut them in cube, marinated in some soy sauce, oyster sauce & some corn starch for 20mins), bell pepper (optional, I just like the colour combination), onion (sliced), spring onion (cut into about 2" length), garlic (sliced) and some red chilies (to add the omphh). Some recipe calls for the chicken to be coated with corn starch/flour & fried first but I'm a lazy cook with low requirement, so...


My way: Heat a tablespoon oil in wok, throw in 50g of cashew nut (I love cashew nut hence I use more, the amount can always be adjusted to personal liking), fried until fragrant (not burnt). Then put the garlic + onion in, stir for ~2minutes. Add bell pepper in (I like mine softer, if you prefer it crunchy, then add in after chicken), quick stir for a minute & add in the chicken. Stir fried for a minute & add in 2 tablespoon of sherry/rice wine & a tablespoon of soy sauce. Stir-fry the dish for about another 2 minutes. Add 2 tablespoon of water if it gets too dry. If you don't like raw spring onions (like me), you can add them to the dish at this time. Otherwise, remove the dish from wok, garnish with spring onions, and serve.


Now if you have pay sufficient notice to the 'ingredient' picture, you'd notice the existence of prawn which was never used in the chicken cashew nut. So why is it there? Remember the whole purpose of my dinner -- tomyam soup? Well, the prawn find its place in the soup which is made simply by adding 2 tablespoon of tomyam paste into a 2 cups water (plus some chicken stock & few drops of fish sauce).

I baked some frozen 'european style' spring roll and serve all with white rice as dinner. My friend has no complain about the meal at all despite being forced to wash dishes after meal, so I guess the food turn out fine to others as well :p