Cashew Chicken
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Cashew Chicken
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Cashew Chicken (Simplified Chinese: 腰果鸡丁; Traditional Chinese: 腰果雞丁; Pinyin: Yāoguǒ jīdīng) is a dish of bite-sized chicken combined with roasted or fried cashew nuts. In the common Chinese form, diced chicken is velveted and quickly stir-fried with the nuts and colorful vegetables in a light savory sauce, giving a contrast between tender meat and crunchy cashews. The name is also used on American Chinese menus, where two families exist: a wok-fried version with a thin garlic-soy sauce, and the Springfield-style version from Springfield, Missouri, in which the chicken is deep-fried, covered in a brown gravy of chicken stock, soy sauce and oyster sauce, and topped with cashews and green onion.[1] Cashew Chicken is often compared with Kung Pao Chicken, which uses peanuts and dried chilies and is noticeably spicier, and with Almond Chicken, its almond-topped American Chinese cousin.
Characteristics
Chinese-style cashew chicken is mild and savory rather than hot: small cubes of chicken, crisp cashews, and vegetables such as cucumber, carrot, celery or bell pepper, lightly glazed in a thin sauce. Springfield-style cashew chicken is richer and softer: crisp battered chicken pieces sit under a glossy brown gravy that softens the crust, with halved cashews and chopped green onion scattered on top.
Ingredients (overview)
Chicken breast or thigh, roasted or fried cashew nuts, vegetables (cucumber, carrot, celery, bell pepper or snow peas), garlic, ginger and scallion, soy sauce, rice wine and a little starch for the sauce; Springfield-style versions add a flour or egg batter for deep-frying and a stock–soy–oyster-sauce gravy. Overview only—not a recipe.
History and culture
Stir-fries of diced meat with nuts are an established pattern in Chinese home and restaurant cooking, and cashew chicken is widely served as a family-style dish; no single inventor is recorded for the Chinese form, so origin stories should be treated as soft. The Springfield-style version is better documented: Wing Yin "David" Leong (1920–2020), a cook from Guangdong who settled in Springfield, Missouri, is credited with creating it at Leong's Tea House, which he opened in 1963, as a way to introduce Chinese flavors to local diners who already loved fried chicken (some accounts place his first servings at the Grove Supper Club, where he cooked before opening the Tea House).[2][3] The dish spread to dozens of restaurants in the Springfield area and is often described as the city's signature dish.[1][4]
Serving and variations
Served as a shared main with steamed rice, or in the United States as a plate with fried rice. Variations include vegetable-heavy home versions, spicier versions with dried chilies that approach Kung Pao Chicken, and Thai-style chicken with cashew nuts, which is a separate dish from the Chinese and Springfield forms. See also Almond Chicken, Sesame Chicken and Chop Suey.