Chicken in Cashew Nut Sauce and Lentil Rice Pilaf

My first attempt at homemade Indian Food!

Chicken in Cashew Nut Sauce:

3 TBS Canola Oil
1 Large Yellow Onion
3/4 C Water
4 OZ finely ground raw unsalted Cashews
1 TSP finely grated fresh ginger
1/2 tsp Cayenne
1 TBS unsalted butter
1.5 tsp Salt
1/2 C plain yogurt

Heat 2 Tablespoons of the oil in a skillet, fry the onion until browned. Grind the onion with 1/4 C water cashews, ginger, garlic, and cayenne until it forms a smooth thick paste.

In a large sauce pan, heat the remaining oil along with the butter. Add the cashew pasteand stir constantly over medium heat with a few tablespoons of water for about 5 minutes. Thin out the sauce with half a cup of water. Add the chicken. Simmer, covered over low heat until the chicken is cooked through. Remove the chicken, stir in the yogurt, pour back over the chicken and serve.

Lentil Rice Pilaf
Note: This makes a crap ton. Reduce as necessary. :-)

1.5 C of rice (We used Uncle Ben's. I imagine you should use Basmati or something fancy, but oh well.)
1/2 C of Lentils
2 Tablespoons of Canola Oil
1/2 Teaspoon of Cumin (The recipe calls for seeds, but I only had ground powder, it worked fine.)
1 small yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 small green serrano chiles. I used half of a jalapeno.
1 TBS unsalted butter
4 C hot water or chicken broth. I used half of each.
1 medium tomato, chopped

Rinse and soak the lentils and rice for 10 minutes.
Heat the oil, add the onion, cumin, chiles and butter. Saute until the onion browns. Add the rice and lentils, mix well. Add the water and tomato. Bring to a boil, then turn heat down and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes.

This was great! I got the recipe from 5 Spices, 50 dishes. A wedding gift from Sonja. Yay for new foods to cook! The only problem I had was grating the ginger. My grater didn't really work. If anyone has any suggestions for this, I'd be happy to hear them. Is there a special ginger grating tool I should have??



Clearly this didn't work very well.



Overall, I was really happy with how this turned out. Alex gave it a 9 out of 10. I would agree. I kept wanting to go back for more. The cashew sauce had a really great flavor, just a little spicy, not too heavy, but filling. I made kind of a mess of the kitchen, but I would definitely make this again! I'm excited to try more recipes from this book, not too many ingredients make for an easy shopping list for me on my way home from work!


Frying the Cashew Paste



YUM!