Sri Lankan Cashew Curry

August 29, 2018

I know I’ve posted a lot of Sri Lankan recipes recently.  I’m trying to post enough to create a Sri Lankan meal if my readers are interested.

Sri Lankan food is not common in the United States.  There are some Sri Lankan restaurants on Staten Island but I’ve never ventured to them when I’ve been in New York.  It’s not that I don’t want to, but it’s a bit of a hike to get there…and there are so many good restaurants in NYC that are easier to get to.

One of these days I’ll try some of the Sri Lankan restaurants in Los Angeles but for now I’ll have to settle on my own cooking.

Sri Lankan Arrack is made from the sap of coconut blossoms (Photo by SilentBobxy2 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons)
If you like Indian, especially South Indian, and Thai food, chances are excellent that you will like Sri Lankan cooking.  I find the spices in Sri Lankan food to be more delicate than Indian with abundant use of super-aromatic spices like cardamom, cinnamon and cloves.

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Curry leaves are an absolute delight, lending a taste and aroma that I can’t really describe.

Although native to Brazil, the cashew was transported to India by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century.  From there it spread throughout South Asia.  It is also commonly grown in Africa.

Cashews are an integral part of Sri Lankan cuisine.  Devilled cashews are a common nibble with cocktails.  Arrack is the classic distilled spirit of Sri Lanka, made from the sap of coconut blossoms.

In Sri Lanka, cashew curry is made from fresh cashews.  I’ve never seen fresh cashews in the United States.  Whole raw cashews work well if soaked in water for several hours, just like dried beans.

In my experience there are two basic styles of cashew curry in Sri Lanka, a dry one and one with gravy.  The one I have always made is with gravy.  The “gravy” is really seasoned coconut milk.

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In years past, I would always make my own coconut milk from shredded coconut but now, with rare exception, I use coconut milk that I’ve purchased.  With a good quality coconut milk, such as Aroy-D it is really impossible to tell the difference when making a curry or other well-seasoned dish.

Aroy-D is an excellent brand of coconut milk

This is an especially easy dish to prepare as all the ingredients are simmered.  There’s no sautéing involved.  That makes it a great introduction to Sri Lankan cooking.  Serve it with rice to sop up all the wonderful gravy.

Print Recipe
Sri Lankan Cashew Curry
If using homemade coconut milk, use 3 cups of thin milk instead of 1 ½ cups purchased coconut milk and 1 ½ cups water. Long thin chilies, such as Cayenne or Thai Bird peppers would be appropriate for this dish.
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Course Mains, Vegetarian
Cuisine Sri Lankan
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Passive Time 3 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Course Mains, Vegetarian
Cuisine Sri Lankan
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Passive Time 3 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Votes: 0
Rating: 0
You:
Rate this recipe!
Instructions
  1. Cover the cashews with water and allow to soak for 2-3 hours, or overnight in the refrigerator.
  2. Split and seed the chilies.
  3. Lightly crush the lemongrass. Peel off the tough outer layers and cut off the dark tough tops, leaving about 4 inches of softer inner pith.
  4. Put everything except cashews, thick coconut milk, and salt into a saucepan.
  5. Boil gently, uncovered, for about 10 minutes.
  6. Add drained, soaked cashews and simmer approximately 15-20 minutes.
  7. Add two teaspoons salt.
  8. Simmer until cashews are cooked but not mushy, approximately 10-20 minutes more.
  9. Add thick coconut milk.
  10. Taste and adjust salt.
  11. Simmer 5 minutes more.
Recipe Notes

Rampe (pandan, bai tuey, or bai toey) can be purchased frozen in Asian grocery stores.

Copyright © 2018 by Villa Sentieri, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Stir-Fried Chicken with Cashews and Snow Peas

May 9, 2018

This is the year of the Dog.

It may be old news, but Lunar New Year was Friday, February 16, 2018.  We celebrated with close friends and a dinner menu with an extensive array of Asian dishes.  There are many traditional dishes for Lunar New Year depending on the country.  I chose to do a pan-Asian menu rather than focus on strictly traditional recipes from a single country.

Kifune Shrine, Kyoto, Japan (Photo by Avishek Kumar)

We were in Palm Springs for Lunar New Year.  The plan was to escape winter weather in Santa Fe which, as it turned out, was not very wintery after all, unlike what the East Coast experienced.


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Sourcing Asian ingredients has become a real issue for me now that I don’t live in a major city.  The only Asian grocery store in Santa Fe, Talin Market, closed a few months ago though the original location is still open in Albuquerque.

Palm Springs only has two Asian markets that I can find.  Both are Filipino-owned and, although they stock an array of Asian goods, they really focus on Filipino foods.

Honen-in Temple, Kyoto, Japan (Photo by Avishek Kumar)

Amazon came to the rescue.  While I’d rather stand in the aisles of an Asian market reading and comparing packages of honest-to-goodness product, Amazon was a lifesaver.

There were eight of us for the Lunar New Year dinner.

The kitchen in our Palm Springs house is small, approximately 9 feet by 11 feet.  Turning out a multi-course meal requires a lot of planning and organization.   I divided the main part of the meal into four courses.  Each course included a complementary array of foods and different cooking methods.

We started with hors d’oeuvres and cocktails.  We ended with a simple, non-traditional dessert of gelato and fortune cookies, which I purchased.  I assumed nobody was going to be too into dessert after all the other food.

Fushimi Inari Shrine, Kyoto, Japan (Photo by Avishek Kumar)

Here’s the menu:

Hors d ’Oeuvres
Vegetable Dumplings with Soy-Vinegar Dipping Sauce
Steamed Edamame with Coarse Salt

First Course
Stir-Fried Chicken with Cashews and Snow Peas
Eggplant Hunan Style
Cambodian Fish with Bean Thread

Second Course
Korean Bulgogi
Indonesian Sweet Corn Patties
Szechuan Garlic Noodles

Third Course
Hot and Sour Soup

Fourth Course
Chinese Roast Pork
Japanese Carrot Salad
Mapo Tofu
Caramelized Tomatoes with Ginger and Vinegar


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I recently published my recipe for Chinese Roast PorkHot and Sour Soup is coming up in a couple of weeks.  Today, however, we’re focusing on a Cantonese classic, Stir-Fried Chicken with Nuts and Vegetables, specifically cashews and snow peas.

This is a recipe that I started making during junior year in college.  It got tweaked a lot over that year.  By then I was comfortable with the end product and didn’t really do much with it… until this year.

I didn’t really change the recipe, though.  I changed the pan!

Shrine in Gion District, Kyoto, Japan (Photo by Avishek Kumar)

You’ve probably figured out that I’m prone to excess where kitchen equipment comes in.  I have four woks:  two carbon steel ones that date back to college and two that are a decade or so younger, one aluminum and one carbon steel.  Both of these are larger than the ones from my college days.

I always cook my stir-fries in a wok but this particular dish is always a problem due to the “velvet” coating on the chicken.  The coating always sticks to the wok.  I suspect I could eliminate that problem by using enough oil to deep fry the chicken but that wasn’t supposed to be the way to cook it.  So, I always just accepted the “sticking-chicken” problem.

Until now.

I used a large, non-stick skillet.

It worked like a charm!!!

I don’t think I’ll give up my woks any time soon but for this particular dish, non-stick is definitely the way to go.

Afterthought:  This recipe calls for MSG, though, of course, you can leave it out if you wish.  If you’re at all interested in the hype about the health effects of MSG, I suggest you read this article.

Print Recipe
Stir-Fried Chicken with Cashews and Snow Peas
Walnuts and either broccoli or green beans can be used instead of cashews and snow peas. The chicken can be marinated several hours in advance and refrigerated, tightly covered. If you wish, you can reduce or eliminate the MSG.
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Course Mains, Poultry
Cuisine Chinese
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Servings
people as part of a Chinese meal
Ingredients
Velvet Chicken
Sauce
Assembly
Course Mains, Poultry
Cuisine Chinese
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Servings
people as part of a Chinese meal
Ingredients
Velvet Chicken
Sauce
Assembly
Votes: 0
Rating: 0
You:
Rate this recipe!
Instructions
Velvet Chicken
  1. Cut the chicken into ½ inch cubes.
  2. Put the chicken in a non-reactive dish.
  3. Sprinkle the chicken with salt, pepper, five spice powder and MSG. Mix well then let stand 20 minutes.
  4. Sprinkle the chicken with cornstarch and 4 teaspoons of oil. Mix well and let stand 20 minutes.
  5. Fold the egg white into the chicken. Let stand 30 minutes. If not using immediately, the chicken can be refrigerated, covered, for several hours at this point.
Sauce
  1. Combine all sauce ingredients, stir well and reserve.
Assembly
  1. Deep fry the nuts until golden. Once they start to color, they will cook rapidly. Careful attention is required to avoid burning them.
  2. When golden, remove the nuts from the oil and spread them on a paper towel to drain.
  3. Cut the tips off the snow peas.
  4. Using a large non-stick skillet, stir-fry the snow peas in 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil over high heat for about 30 seconds, until bright green. (You can use some of the oil used to fry the nuts if you wish.)
  5. Transfer the cooked snow peas to a plate to cool.
  6. In the same non-stick skillet, stir-fry the garlic and ginger over high heat, until fragrant, approximately 30 seconds, adding a few tablespoons more oil if needed.
  7. Add the chicken and stir-fry over high heat until just cooked through, approximately 2-3 minutes.
  8. Stir the sauce mixture to combine and add it to the chicken.
  9. Bring to a boil and cook until thickened, stirring constantly, approximately 1 minute.
  10. Stir in the cooked cashews and snow peas.
  11. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the sesame oil.
  12. Serve immediately with steamed rice.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2018 by VillaSentieri.com. All rights reserved.

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