Recipe #51: sweet and spicy nuts

 It’s that time of year again—holiday parties! You have to bring something, you can’t arrive empty handed, but what can you whip up rubbishly without appearing rubbishy? I can help you.

These nuts are originally from a published recipe on a long-forgotten bougie recipe blog, but I’ve pimped them up so much I don’t feel any compunction to confess to any plagiarism. These nuts are original Rubbishy Cookery now baby.

Ingredients:


Directions:

This first part is the part I’ve “borrowed” from the other posh blog (whose name I’ve forgotten so I couldn’t credit them even if I wanted to. Sorry not sorry!).

Toast a tray of mixed or single type of nuts at 300F for about 10-15 minutes or until the nuts are fragrant and light brown inside, without burning them:


This part is critical (and thanks to the other highbrow blog of long forgotten title): get those hot nuts into a bowl and pour in a good glug  of tamari sauce and a smaller glug of toasted sesame oil—they will sizzle hard and evaporate a bit on contact with the hot nuts—and flip them around to fully coat all the nuts:



While the nuts are still hot and wet (!), and this is where the recipe goes off script from the inspired blog post, add about a tablespoon or more of brown sugar, about a tablespoon of chili powder, half a teaspoon or so of cinnamon, and a few shakes of cayenne powder and flip it around to evenly coat all the nuts:


Then spread the spiced and sugared nuts out evenly back on the tray, now covered in parchment paper:


And pop that tray back in the still-warm toaster oven with the heat turned off for about 30-60 minutes:


Okay, that last bit was also gleaned from the original recipe, from the blog that had plenty of ad revenue and cachet, so what do they care if I’ve ripped off their recipe idea a little? Really?


Display the cooled sweet and spicy nuts in a charming bowl from Dollarama, which you will not care if you ever see again, and share at the holiday party, where all the guests will enjoy them. 

As one fellow reveller said to me upon trying them at a holiday party, “They’re pretty good.”

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