The Confucius Institute will offer its first fall cooking class on Aug. 26. Open to faculty, staff and students, the class will showcase how to make cashew chicken and kung pao shrimp.

The class costs $30 and will include hands-on experience making the dishes and handouts to take home. For more information, or to register, contact Angela Rystrom at 402-472-5370.

Cashew chicken is a favorite, easy-to-make Chinese-American dish. It combined chicken, cashew nuts and a thick sauce. Vegetables, like bell peppers, are added to make the dish more appealing.

The spicy stir fry kung pao shrimp is classic Szechuan cuisine. The original version uses chicken as its primary ingredient. There are also variations using pork, beef or shrimp. The traditional kung pao dish has Szechuan peppercorns and chili peppers to give it its classic hot and numbing flavor. For the Confucius Institute course, a version without peppercorns will be prepared.