Category: Recipes, or Eat the Fuck at Home!

Favorite meals to cook at home

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Stir-Fried Chicken with Cashew Nuts

By popular demand, I am continuing with “Eat the Fuck At Home!” series, as in most countries in Europe and a lot of places one still cannot go out to eat… 🙁

This week’s find and current favorite is a recipe from Central Thailand.  It’s a fucking tasty and colorful dish, vaguely resembling the Chinese sweet & sour chicken, but with about a thousand times more flavor!

It does not call for any overly exotic ingredients and is so easy that you need to have hands growing out of your ass to fuck it up.

Ingredients

  • 200 gr chicken meat (breast of thigh – whichever one takes your fucking fancy), cut into bite-size pieces
  • 1/3 cup (~80 gr) of raw cashew nuts (make sure NOT to get the roasted and salted ones – while they sure go well with a beer, they will make your dish taste fucking disgusting). If you love cashews as much as I do – throw in ½ (~125 gr) or even the whole cup (250gr)!
  • 1-2 red spur chilies (the original recipe calls for dried ones, but the fresh ones work just as fine), seeded and sliced into 3-4 cm long pieces
  • 1 small onion, sliced
  • 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
  • 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
  • 2 spring onions, cut into 3-4 cm lengths
  • ½ cup (~125 ml) of vegetable or sesame seed oil

Above are the pictures of the only two vaguely complicated ingredients you need. If you don’t know what fucking cashews or spring onions look like – you probably have never seen a chicken either, so relax and order takeout – cooking not for you…

Cooking

  • Heat the wok, and pour as much of the oil into it as you fucking dare.  Once the oil is hot, turn the heat down to medium, and throw in the cashews.  Fry them stirring constantly for 3-4 min until golden brown.
    Pro-tip: the cashews seem to take a long fucking time to take on (so for the first couple of minutes it will seem like nothing is happening), but then take on heat and color at lightning speed.  Watch them like a hawk, and at first signs of browning, fish them the fuck out of the wok with a slotted spoon, and drain on paper towel.
  • Add the chilies (dried or fresh) to the oil in the wok, and stir fry for 20-30 seconds until fragrant, and their color turns a bit darker.  Remove with a slotted spoon, and leave to drain on paper towel.
  • Now’s the time for chicken.  Throw the pieces into the oil in the wok, and fry for another 5 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked and gets a lovely golden-brown color.  Take all chicken out of the wok with a slotted spoon, and drain on paper towel.
  • While the rest of your ingredients are chilling out on paper towels, throw the onion in the wok, and stir-fry for about 1 minute.  This time, do NOT remove the onion from the wok, but add oyster sauce and sugar and mix well.
  • Now – show time!  Add the chicken, cashew nuts, chilies, and spring onion and stir fry for 1 minute.
  • Remove from heat, and serve.  You can eat it with the side of plain white rice, or just pure – the stuff is fucking delicious!
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Borscht

A colorful bowl of goodness

Mistakenly referred to the world-over as “Russian Borsch”, this rich and colorful soup was actually born in Ukraine.  Over the years it has, indeed, became a staple of the Russian cuisine as well.

This was a disclaimer about the origins of Borscht, now let’s get down to business!  One thing I should tell you from the beginning – while it does not take too long to make, is not that complicated, and does not require any exotic ingredients, Borscht needs A LOT of patience.  Simply because it is always better the next day.  Correction – it takes fucking amazing the next day!  So, my advice to all those attempting the recipe – eat before you cook.  And put your Borscht hopes off till the next day.  You are welcome!

Ingredients

  • 2 liters of water
  • 400-500 gr of “soup beef”, ideally with a piece of bone

Water and meat can be substituted with the canned beef stock, if you are too fucking lazy.  People who use powdered stocks should be shot on sight, and fucking deserve the shitty results they will get when cooking with it.  Just saying…

  • 2 medium-sized raw beetroots, or 1 big fucker, peeled and grated
  • 3 medium-sized onions, peeled and finely chopped
  • 1 big raw carrot, peeled and grated
  • 2-3 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and cut into medium-sized cubes
  • 2-3 tablespoons of concentrated tomato paste
  • 300 gr of white cabbage, shredded
  • 4-5 tablespoons of olive or vegetable oil
  • 1-2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
  • 2-3 dried laurel leaves
  • 4-5 black peppercorns
  • Salt to taste
  • Sour cream and parsley/dill to garnish

Cooking

First off, you need to make the stock.  If you are a classy dude/gal, you will get the soup beef off your local supermarket/butcher’s, and having washed it, will place it in the big pot with 2 liters of water to cook.  Bring the water to the boil, turn the heat down, add laurel leaves and peppercorns, and keep the broth simmering, taking off any impurities that raise to the surface.  Simmering your broth while you are preparing the rest (up to 30 minutes) should give it a nice, rich flavor.

If you are a lazy bastard or any gender, you will just empty 2 liters of canned beef stock into the pot, bring it to the boil, and leave simmering on medium heat.  You can still add laurel leaves and peppercorns to the canned stock – this might help a little with the taste.

  • Heat up a frying pan, add olive/vegetable oil until almost bubbling, and fry the chopped onion, until just golden
  • Turn the heat to medium, add grated carrot, and fry for a couple of minutes
  • Add grated beetroot, mix well, and fry together with onion and carrot for 5-10 minutes, mixing so that it does not stick to the pan.  Add a little bit of oil, if needed.
  • Sprinkle the fresh lemon juice over the mix – this will help preserve the bright color of beetroot, and make your Borscht look festive as fuck.
  • Add salt to taste, and mix well.
  • Add tomato paste, and mix well.  Simmer the mix for another 3-5 minutes.

And now – show time!  You need to bring all the ingredients together.

  • If you were making proper fucking stock, take the meat out, cool it a little bit so as not to burn your fingers, take all the viable meat off the bone, cut it into squares, and chuck back into the stock.
  • Add the onion-carrot-beetroot mix into the stock as well and stir well.
  • Add the shredded cabbage and potato cubes, stir well, cover the pot and leave everything simmering for 10-15 minutes.  Make sure your Borscht does not come to a boil, as it will make it loose color.
  • Take off the heat, and let your Borscht cool down at room temperature. Do NOT fucking touch it on the same day – you will be disappointed, if you do!

Serving

Store in the fridge overnight, and heat up the next day either on the stove, or in the microwave.  Serve hot with a hearty tablespoon of sour cream on top, and sprinkled with chopped dill and/or parsley. 

Connoisseurs also recommend to down a shot of ice-cold vodka before or during your meal.  This is the Russian touch to the Ukrainian classic. Cheers!