Ingredients

This is enough for a “small” serving: for two people as a single course, or part of a larger meal.

quantity		ingredient		step
10 ml		rice wine or dry sherry		1
10 ml		soya sauce		1
2 g		cornflour		1
240 g		chicken breast		2
7 g		dried shiitake mushrooms		3
70 g		cashew nuts or walnut kernels		4
80 g		snow peas		5
40 g		spring onions		6
25 g		green capsicum		7
150 ml		water		9
4 g		chicken stock powder		9
12 g		cornflour		9
8 ml		light soya sauce		9
5 g		salt		9
		pepper		9
1		green or red chili, cut in thin strips		10
		coriander		11
		sesame oil		14

Procedure

Start 45 minutes before serving.

1. Make a marinade of the wine, soya sauce and cornflour.
2. Cut chicken into 1 cm cubes, marinate in the marinade for 20 minutes.
3. Soak the shiitake in boiling water for at least 10 minutes.
4. Fry cashew in hot oil until golden, cool pan quickly (see notes below).
5. Chop the snow peas into about 3 pieces each.
6. Chop the spring onions into thin rings.
7. Chop the capsicum into strips about 4 cm long and 4 mm wide.
8. Chop the shiitake into thin slices.
9. Prepare a stock from the water, stock powder, cornflour, soya sauce and pepper.
10. Slice the chili into strips.
11. Chop the coriander.

    All the preceding steps can be done significantly ahead of time. The following must be done pretty quickly:

12. Fry chicken in hot oil, successively adding spring onions, then capsicum, then shiitaki and snow peas, until all is cooked.
13. Add the stock and bring to the boil, stirring.
14. Dress in a dish, sprinkle with the cashews, coriander and a bit of sesame oil.
15. Garnish with the chili strips and coriander
16. Serve with rice.

Notes

It's very easy to burn the cashews when frying them. The oil temperature should not exceed 120°, and when you have achieved the final colour, the nuts will carry on browning. I solve this problem by putting a wet sponge cloth on the draining board of the sink. When the nuts are ready, I put the frying pan on the sponge cloth, which cools it down very quickly (producing a lot of steam in the process, of course).