Walking into the kitchen and smelling a tray of nuts toasting in the oven is a warm welcome. It’s a snack that shifts gear from the end of the week into cooking, as we put on music and pour a glass, and tides us over because it’s usually a little while until supper’s ready.
We love a roasted, salted nut, especially on a cold day. Adding rosemary turns the tines crisp, like miniature herb French fries, which makes it tempting to go over the nuts picking out all the seasoning. And of the raw nuts available (with the exception of peanuts) almonds are more affordable.
Although almonds are more forgiving than, say, pine nuts which can turn in an instant from pale gold to charcoal when roasting at a higher heat, a longer roast at a lower temperature offers a bit of a buffer. The key is a full roast, and the way to tell is when a nut broken in half is pale brown right the way through.
It’s about being more receptive to that moment than the timer and having long been an acolyte, this is an Alice Waters method1. Her original takes sage leaves, which add an even greater surface area of crisp, along with a combination of almonds, walnuts, and pecans.
Another version recently made me curious, as it includes not only the mixed nuts above but also cashews, Brazil nuts, and hazelnuts, tossed with melted butter, brown sugar, and cayenne (as well as salt and rosemary) after roasting.
They’re served at a New York City restaurant that makes sure there’s a fresh batch of hot, roasted nuts on the bar counter just before 5pm every day, which would definitely have me pulling up a seat! And naturally Brandon has his own take too, which is at a higher heat (see below).
I pare it back to 200g almonds tossed with 15ml (one tablespoon) extra-virgin olive oil and a small handful of rosemary tines (wild when we have some) pulled off the branch and a generous pinch of sea salt flakes.
Once spread on a tray, they’re baked in an oven preheated to 130°C (rack in the middle) for around 30 minutes, moving them around about halfway through. They go with Sherry or MCC or Pét-nat and if we’re with friends, everyone gets their own little terracotta dish so there’s no polite hang back.
Salty, spicy, and super savoury
The herby nuts are a winner, but left to my own devices I’m always going to push the salty-umami envelope until it bursts. In this case, that involves a few ingredients that appeared in a famous ‘leaked’ recipe for the secret blend of herbs and spices behind a certain brand of fried chicken! They, together with a tangy splash of unpronounceable savouriness, deliver a roasted nut that cries out for something sweet and strong like a classic Old Fashioned or a shot of Irish whiskey.
Preheat the oven to 180°C and put 250g raw almonds in a bowl. Pour in one and a half tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce and mix thoroughly. Leave them for at least 10 minutes while you mix together one teaspoon each of:
Garlic salt
Paprika
Cayenne pepper
White pepper
Salt
The nuts should have absorbed the Worcestershire which is crucial to creating a discernible outer layer on the final roast nuts. Now add the spice mix slowly, tossing the nuts as you go to get a nice coating.
Finally add in one tablespoon of peanut oil – or if you want to get edgy, you could even use a bit of sesame oil – and toss it all up again. You should have a satisfyingly thick sauce around the nuts. Pour them onto a baking sheet, which you can either foil or cover with baking paper to avoid mess.
The tricky part to roasting is that these nuts go from perfect to overdone in about a minute, so set a timer for five minutes and when it goes, remove the tray and shake the nuts up a bit moving the ones on the outside to the inside and vice-versa. Now set another five minutes and put them back in the oven.
When the timer goes (i.e. 10 minutes are up) take them out and chop a nut in half to see how it’s doing. The idea is to get a light brown: a super dark brown means you’ve cooked the goose, so to speak. I normally check them every minute once the 10 minutes is up.
My Pantry by Alice Waters with Fanny Singer (New York: Pam Krauss Books, 2015)