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Chicken with Walnuts is a childhood favorite homemade take-out recipe.  Packed with delicious chicken, walnuts, and lots of veggies it tastes just like I remember!

I know I’ve talked about growing up and cooking Chinese food.  I mean, we grew up cooking lots of different cuisines and I loved every minute of it, for the most part.  Still can’t stomach those oysters.  Anyway, even as a youngster I remember one of my most prized possessions was a youth cookbook with recipes from around the world.  There was Mexican, Chinese, Irish, English, and a few others I can’t remember.  I don’t have the cookbook now.  While I’ve grown up to bigger and better cookbooks I still remember how fond I was of that cookbook.

I think I made every recipe in that cookbook, but I can’t remember.  What I do remember is another favorite cookbook from my childhood that I do have in my library.  We called it the little yellow Chinese cookbook.  I don’t remember it’s actual name.  We just called it that because it was little, it was yellow, and it was a Chinese cookbook.  I know, kind of boring, but it worked.

Whenever we wanted to cook some good Chinese food, we would pull that cookbook out.  It had everything you could imagine and then some.  We made hot and sour soup, egg rolls, date filled wontons, kung pao chicken, beef with broccoli, lemon chicken, egg drop soup, dumplings, and even almond cookies.  I’m telling you, our house could smell like the best Chinese place in town when we were cooking up a storm from that little yellow cook book.

Confessions of a picky eater.

This Chicken with Walnuts recipe is one of my favorites that we used to make from that cookbook.  Okay.  I have to confess something to  y’all, and I know I’ve said this before.  I was very picky growing up.  To the point that when I saw all the “things” that went into hot and sour soup, I wouldn’t touch it.  I was an egg drop girl after seeing tree ears.  Have you heard of tree ears?  It was moo goo gai pan or beef with broccoli for me growing up.

But since Mom and Dad were persistent in getting me to eat all of these dishes, I love all of them and look back fondly on all the time we spent making them in the kitchen.  To date, my hands down fave is mu shu pork with those little pancakes.  I do not like the hoisin, but I’ll eat my weight in the pork and vegetable mixture.  Next is probably General Tsaos.  I can also kill a bowl of hot and sour and dumplings.

And egg rolls?  Just not the same as Mom’s.  I’ve threatened the hubs that I will be making these at some point this winter.  Because they’re pretty time consuming I’d rather not try them in the middle of summer.  I just get too hot cooking like that in the summer.  They were my favorite for breakfast the next day, too.  So so good especially with homemade mustard.  You can’t beat house mustard.

Not to mention they go really well with this dish.  This dish that tastes just like I remember it.  All those ginger, garlic, soy flavors just flooded memories of pulling out that yellow book, choosing a recipe to cook, and all hands getting in and helping.  Boy do I miss those days.

But now I get to make new memories.  And I get to try out new recipes from different countries.  With the internet, which wasn’t all that great back then, I can find practically any recipe I could ever want to cook.  I’ve travelled to Afghanistan, Russia, Bosnia (literally for this one), and Albania from my kitchen just to name a few.  I started a series, and I should get back to it, where I was picking a dish from every country in the world.  That spreadsheet is around here somewhere.

So, this Chicken with Walnuts dish brought of flood of lots of different memories.  And it always amazes me what I think of when I cook a dish.  Especially one from my childhood.  Have you been flooded with memories after cooking a dish?  So much so that you just have to take a step back and experience it again before getting back to cooking?

Sorry, didn’t mean to get all nostalgic on ya.  *grabs tissues*

Anyway.

This Chicken with Walnuts is so simple but has amazing flavor.  The ginger and soy coat the chicken while the garlic and veggies swim in the delicious sauce.  The walnuts have a nice, toasty crunch that is completely different than peanuts.  Trust me on this one.  Not only are they different nuts – I know, right?  Crazy! – but they have a totally different texture, flavor, and element in this dish.  Do not substitute unless you’re allergic to walnuts, and then maybe try pecans or chopped Brazil nuts?  Just not peanuts.  Save those for this Satay Beef Noodle Bowl.

I think I have to make this one again.  Soon.  It’s so good and truly does make your kitchen feel like the hottest Asian restaurant in town.  Dress it up and try eating on your good china with this one.  It’s worth it!!

Nutty Recipes

• Almond Ricotta Fudge from Magical Ingredients
• Apple Cider Donuts with Pecan Sugar Topping from Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks
• Banana Bread Pecan Scones from Blogghetti
• Chicken with Walnuts from A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures
• Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie from Fresh April Flours
• Maple Vanilla Granola from Art of Natural Living
• Pistachio Crusted Salmon from That Recipe
• Potica Nut Roll from The Spiffy Cookie
• Rocky Road Brownies from Hostess at Heart

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