Spiced Nuts

I have been talking about holiday appetizers. I received my Costco Connection magazine and it has a couple interesting articles in it about food and wine pairings and appetizers. There is a paragraph here that I want to go over before I give you my recipe on Spiced Nuts.

Nuts As Health Food

“Many nuts are an excellent source for anti-oxidants, tummy filling fiber, vegetarian protein, healthy non-unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats” and those are the fats that are in olive oil that are healthy for you. “Vitamins and minerals, including calcium and magnesium for strong bones, prosperous, iron, potassium and vitamins E and B.” So nuts are very good for you. Okay, not convinced?

Simple Appetizer

I suggest that you keep your appetizers simple for your holiday party. I assure you that if you put out these spiced nuts, especially “home made”, that people are going to eat them up. They always do. This recipe will also help you because the nuts need to be done a couple days ahead. You can customize your “Chex Party Mix” by using your own spiced nut mix. We still serve Chex Party Mix at the holidays.

Spiced Nuts Recipe

The method of preparation I use, is adapted from a recipe from Cooks Illustrated. It is a great magazine if you are learning how to cook. Even if you know how to cook it is a great resource. They are known as “Americas Test Kitchen”. They test a whole bunch of recipes and only print the best ones. And there is very little advertising in it. Enough promotion.

Spiced Nuts

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Take a cookie sheet and line it with parchment paper. Then spread out the nuts in a single layer. Toast them for about 4 minutes. Rotate the pan; stir the nuts around a little bit, and brown for another 4 minutes. For the second browning let your nose alert you if the nuts are toasting too quickly. Or check them frequently, as they can start over cooking or get too browned.

While you are toasting the nuts you want to put your spice mix together. This spice mixture can be flavored in any number of ways. Asian, Mexican, Cajun, Italian, it really doesn’t matter; it is a matter of the spices that you use. Here is the combination; it is generally 2 parts sugar to 1 part salt (use kosher salt) and 1 part of your spice mixture. By that I mean, if you have 3 or 4 different spices in your mixture, like cumin, coriander and cayanne pepper, then all those spices together equal 1 portion. 2 portions sugar, 1 portion salt, 1 portion spice mixture.

Then prepare your glaze. This is for a small batch. This is for about 2 cups of nuts.

2 T. water

1 tsp. brown sugar

1 T. butter

You melt all the ingredients in a pan while you stir. Then you add in your nuts. Stir the nuts until they get coated and absorb the glaze. Pour the glazed nuts into a bowl with your spice mixture and combine. Then spread them back out on the parchment lined cookie sheet until they cool. Then store them in an airtight container for 2 or 3 days ahead of your party. You can just open the container and serve.

Experiment with your spices. Practice ahead of time. Treat yourself this weekend (or a weeknight) and make up a batch of spiced nuts, but practice, practice, practice. Don’t wait to do a new recipe until you are on stage!