Cheesecake Factorys Spicy Cashew Chicken

The Cheesecake Factory's Spicy Cashew Chicken recipe is, simply, amazing. This isn't a dish for cooks who don't like to use a lot of ingredients, go through a lot of steps and dirty a lot of dishes along the way. However, the end result of this chicken recipe is so worth the preparation and clean-up. All the dishes will be empty at the end, I promise. The dish is just that good.

This spicy cashew chicken recipe calls for about 20 different ingredients and many of them are not common items most of us would keep in the pantry. The key to this recipe is preparation. You will need items like rice flour, hoisin sauce (a thick, pungent sauce often used in Chinese cuisine as a glaze or dipping sauce), sherry wine (previously known as �sack�, a fortified wine made from white grapes grown in Andalusia, Spain), red wine vinegar (also called Four Thieves Vinegar, after four thieves who managed to elude the Black Plague in France by imbibing a potion of garlic soaked in soured red wine) and sriracha sauce (a type of hot- or chili-sauce made from the paste of chili peppers, distilled vinegar, sugar, salt and garlic), not to mention sesame seeds, cashews, green onions and fresh parsley, so put these ingredients on your next shopping list so that you're prepared!

The recipe is broken down into helpful steps. How to make seasoned rice flour, how to make the batter, how to make the sauce. It seems complicated, but is easier than it looks at a first glance (and there are pictures, to make things a little easier). Make sure you have a lot of mixing bowls on hand, though, because you're going to need them.

The flavor and texture profiles are amazing. Spicy, sweet, acidic, crispy and crunchy. This chicken dish has it all! So, go ahead and give it a try.

Garlic whose close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek and chive, has been used by humans in all sorts of recipes for over 7,000 years. Native to central Asia, garlic has long been a staple in recipes in the Mediterranean region. Garlic has also been traced back to the Ancient Egyptians, for use in food recipes and medicinal purposes. Garlic has long been known to help in the prevention of the common cold, along with other beneficial health benefits.

Cashews are rich sources of dietary minerals, including particularly copper, manganese, phosphorus and magnesium, and of thiamin, vitamin B6 and vitamin K. Iron, potassium, zinc and selenium are present in significant content. Cashews contain 113 mg of beta-sitosterol. Cashews are not actually nuts but seeds. They are a popular snack and food source. Cashews, unlike oily tree nuts, contain starch to about 10% of their weight. This makes cashews more effective than nuts in thickening water based dishes such as soups, meat stews, and some Indian milk based desserts. In many Southeast Asian cuisines cashews are used for this unusual characteristic, rather than other nuts.