BETTER THAN TAKEOUT - Cashew Chicken!

[Music] welcome to hot thai kitchen so today's video is my ultimate comprehensive guide to one of the most popular dishes cashew chicken which many people might think of as a chinese dish but in thailand we also have our version which is a little bit different and today i'm going to break it all down give you all the tips for maximum deliciousness it will be better than take out let's get started in thai this dish is called kaipat mitma wong him of han kai means chicken pot means to stir-fry and mid-mammon himapan is the longest word in the world for cashews let's first deal with our kai first tip from max deliciousness marinate your chicken yes the sauce is going to be delicious but the sauce is only on the outside and we want it flavorful inside and out you can do breasts or thighs for this for chicken thigh just cut it into bite size strips and then we're simply going to marinate it in soy sauce just give that a mix and you do this before you start prepping things and it'll be ready to go when you're ready to cook if you're going to go with chicken breast because chicken breast can dry out so easily you don't want to cut it too thin so no thinner than half an inch would be my suggestion and in addition to the soy sauce i'm also going to add a little bit of extra water and this water is going to get absorbed into the chicken breast along with the soy sauce acts a little bit like a brine and it'll help keep the chicken juicy in case you accidentally overcook it and all that water should get absorbed by the time you're ready to cook next we're going to make the sauce and i'm using all the brown sauces in a thai kitchen here starting with oyster sauce to this i'm going to add some soy sauce a little fish sauce and a little golden mountain sauce which is a type of thai soy sauce that's got a different flavor if you can't find it substitute maggi seasoning would work or just use more fish sauce and all these sauces contribute to a complex flavor i'm going to add some toasted sesame oil a little sugar and finally the most important thing thai chili paste not everyone uses thai chili paste but i think it's a must it's sweet savory super umami it's really going to make this dish stand out if you don't have it you can make it i'll link to the recipe in the description below a mix to dissolve the chili paste and that's the secret sauce finally we're going to organize our mizon plus which is just a fancy term for all of our prep on plate a we've got garlic and onions on plate b we've got bell pepper three colors is the classic way it's done in thailand you don't have to have three but you should have a green because green has a grassier note that's different from the sweeter juicy reds and yellows and then finally in both c we've got green onions and roasted cashews here's my best kept secret when it comes to roasted cashews so you know we all buy these pre-roasted cashews from the store but they're not really roasted to my standards they're kind of like blonde roasted but i want dark roasted so what i do is i roast them further i just put them on a baking sheet and bake them at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes and then they'll come out darker nuttier more flavorful and crunchier there the secret to why my cashews always taste better is out all right let's get cooking first we're gonna fry some dry chilies now this is kind of optional but in thailand you always always see fried chilies in cashew chicken and this can be any kind of dried chilies these are just generic ones that i got from a chinese grocery store it can be spicy or mild up to you i'm going to add just a little bit of oil my wok is off for now in goes my dry chilies and then i'm going to turn the heat on low and i turn the heat on low because these burn very quickly so if you preheat it and you accidentally heat it too hot the chilies will go like instantly and you want to keep stirring them for more even toasting and they're going to start to puff and darken and become smoky and delicious and crispy and it happens very fast so don't stop and talk to the camera for too long and do not walk away it happens in like one minute okay here we go see they're kind of frying and puffing almost there almost there and out there we go it should be sort of a dark maroon almost black that's how you get nice crispy and turn off the heat right away because your pan is going to start to go crazy okay now we start the actual cashew chicken in the same wok that we used to fry the chili because now that oil has lots of chili flavor in it i'm going to heat the wok on high and i'm going to first sear the chicken and get it nice and browned that is the other secret is you want to brown the chicken spread it out into one layer as much as you can and then don't touch it give it time to brown and develop flavor in many restaurants they will actually dress the chicken and flour and deep fry which is way more work than it's worth especially for home cooking but if you steer the chicken well it's totally not necessary an oil may jump onto your face so you better be careful let it sear be patient the darker the better right there we go i got some nice browning going on i'm gonna go ahead and flip these wow let the other side sear and at this point i want the chicken completely done see that brownness that's what you want if you only cook them they will taste like boiled chicken if you brown them they'll taste like fried chicken okay i'm happy with that i'm gonna turn this off we're gonna take it out leaving all the oil in the wok nice okay so that's setting aside and in the same wok i'm going to go in with my chopped garlic and i don't turn the heat back on right now just in case the wok is super super hot from frying chicken and burned the garlic so it's always a safety measure turn the heat on to sort of medium now medium to medium high when you're frying garlic you don't want to go too hot and then they'll burn scrape any stuck chicken bits that is extra deliciousness and now the garlic is frying in chicken fat also i'm waiting for the garlic to start to turn a little bit golden and then i'm going to go in with the onion give that a good toss now at this point i like my onions still you know not too soft so i'm not really going to cook them but if you love them really really soft you can spend a little bit more time here goes very quickly from now you guys i'm going to add my bell peppers my traffic light peppers as i like to call them the chicken and all of my sauce wow [Music] the heat is going back all the way to high and toss past toss like your life depended on it so easy just a little prep but the cooking itself is very fast nice and since the chicken is already done and i like my bell pepper quite crisp i'm going to turn it off and then my cashews and green onions are going to go in and this just needs a toss and that's it because you don't want the cashews to spend so much time in the sauce and they become soggy and you see how many cashews this is this is like more cashews than any restaurant will ever give you and this is the most important thing i'll say today there should be enough cashews to have at least one cashew in every single bite and that is it let's plate it up let's take a break to thank our sponsor and if you're like me and love to collect points when you shop maybe you've got all these loyalty cards in your wallet you're gonna love this one fetch rewards is an easy to use free app that lets you earn rewards by scanning receipts from any stores and restaurants all across the united states here's how it works let's say this is your grocery receipt you download the fetch app on your phone and use it to take a photo of the receipt it scans the information and gives you points collect enough of these points and you can redeem them for gift cards from many stores including amazon and visa gift cards it's fast easy and completely free again the receipts can be from any kind of retail stores even mom and pop asian grocery stores where you got your fish sauce can be from restaurants and yes they can also be e-receipts so all of your amazon purchases they count too so check the link in the description below and for a limited time my viewers can get 3 000 bonus points when you scan your first receipt by using the code pylin look at this that looks so good better than any takeout cashew chicken in my family is a very very important dish because it is my husband's absolute favorite dish even before he met me he was going to his local thai place and this is what he would always get and so it's one that i make often and it's one i put a lot of thought into how to maximize its deliciousness let's taste it with rice of course oh i forgot the chilies chilies chilies you want to put the chilies on top as garnish and also that they remain crispy this is what happens with things that like need to go in in the last minute i always forget them add as many as you want because it doesn't really affect the flavor of the actual dish and then i will show you now how to tackle it so if you wanted to eat the chili because it's crunchy you can easily just break it like that and then mix it into your bite and it's actually a good trick if you have like a family with different spice tolerances that chili paste you can smell it [Music] so epic so epic everything about this is perfect the chicken is flavorful inside and out because of a marinade it's got that fried chicken flavor because we sear the sauce is perfectly well balanced it's not too sweet it's very it's a very well balanced sweet savory salty profile a little bit of spiciness from the dried chilies and the cashews are crunchy see the last thing you want in cashew chicken is soggy cashews okay so this is not something you want to make today eat tomorrow you want to make and eat right now and if you're gonna make extra don't put the cashews in until the last minute i promise you that makes all the difference and the extra toasting of cashews of course that is the secret and that is it i have given you everything that i know on how to make kaipat make momo himapan the best possible version it could be so i hope you give it a try the recipe as always will be on hothaiken.com and a special thanks to all of our patreon members who help support the show if you want to know what that's all about and join our thai food loving community you can check out more information on that in the description below thank you as always for watching and i will see you next time for your next edition thai meal

Channel: Pailin's Kitchen

Views: 320,323

Keywords: Hot Thai Kitchen, Thai food, Thai cuisine, Thai cooking, Thai, Thailand, Bangkok, street food, Southeast Asia, Asian cooking, Asian food, Asian cuisine, Asian recipe, Thai recipe, Cooking, cooking show, how to cook thai food, how to cook, cashew chicken, ไก่ผัดเม็ดมะม่วง, ไก่ผัดเม็ดมะม่วงหิมพานต์, ไก่ผัดพริกเผา, cashew chicken recipe

Id: 1C8P2unb-6I

Length: 12min 50sec (770 seconds)

Published: Fri May 20 2022