Pad Med Mamuang — Cashew Chicken / ผัดเม็ดมะม่วงหิมพานต์

Central Thai — a restaurant and home-cooking staple with Chinese-Thai influences

Pad med mamuang (cashew stir-fry) is a mild, sweet-savoury Thai stir-fry that is both extremely popular internationally and frequently misrepresented by excessive sweetness. The key technique is separately deep-frying the cashews until golden before adding to the stir-fry — raw cashews added directly to the wok go soft; pre-fried cashews maintain crunch. The sauce is oyster sauce, fish sauce, a small amount of dark soy, and a moderate amount of palm sugar. Dried red chillies (prik haeng) are deep-fried alongside the cashews for colour and mild heat. The chicken (sliced breast or thigh) should be the freshest possible to handle the relatively simple sauce without any off-flavour contamination.

• The nut-protein stir-fry concept appears throughout Chinese cooking (kung pao chicken with peanuts); Vietnamese gà xào hạt điều is a near-identical preparation.

Pad med mamuang demonstrates the sweet-savoury balance at its most accessible — the nuttiness of fried cashews, the slight sweetness of the sauce, and the mild heat of dried chilli create a combination that is both straightforward and genuinely satisfying.