Let's hear it for Vegan Nuts!
In certain situations, I am a huge fan of the nut. I like them dry roasted. I like them toasted and salted. I like to eat them straight up. I like them as an accent in Indian and Chinese cuisine. I am not, however, a big fan of the nut-as-ingredient-in-sweet-foods. While I enjoy them ground up in doughs and batters, I do not want nuts in my fudge. I do not like them hiding out in brownies, ready to get in the way of dark, gooey bliss with a startling crunch. When someone asks me what my favorite sort of pie is, it would never occur to me to say pecan pie.
When someone asks me to come up with a Fantastic Dessert, my mind does not immediately turn to nuts. Except one time. A person on a Vegan diet called the restaurant to say they were coming in, and could we please fix them a special, Vegan meal. Now, this was a restaurant where meat was king–beef, pork, lamb, chicken, duck, foie–you name the living protein, and it would find its way into our kitchen. (Sorry, Chris) Heck, we even served beef cheeks and sweet breads and all sorts of Other Parts. So, asking us to provide a Vegan menu for one was a little odd, to say the least. But, since we were kind and liked a challenge (and they gave us a few days’ notice), we said sure.
Dessert fell to me. We had Riesling granita in the freezer, so that was an obvious choice, but what to go with it? Something that I could make and then snack on later was, again, an obvious choice. So, Vegan Spiced Nuts were born. I did talk to the Vegan in Question to ask her if she was okay with a dish made with refined sugar. (Did you know that lots of refined white sugar is filtered through charred animal bone as part of the refining process?) She said that she was okay with the sugar, and on I went. (Had she not been okay with that, I would’ve figured out something).
Here’s what I did:
- I put some sugar, a heavy pinch of salt, some cinnamon and a pinch or two of cayenne pepper in a pan.
- I added just a wee bit of water.
- I threw in lots of pecan halves.
- I heated and stirred over medium-ish heat until the sugar was all melted and boiling and then starting to caramelize.
- I added another small handful of sugar and stirred and stirred. This second addition of sugar acted as “seed crystals” to encourage the whole batch to crystallize.
- I stirred and stirred, scraping crystals off the sides of the pan and back into the mix until the nuts went from brown and shiny to light brown and sandy.
- As soon as all of the nuts were sandy and matte, I dumped them onto a Silpat and spread them out to cool.
- The end.
I want you to know that I had never made these little guys before. I didn’t have a recipe–I had just seen a chef do it when I was in culinary school. He didn’t have a recipe either. (As an aside, the chef made them for us to dip into tempered chocolate. By the time we had our chocolate tempered, Evil Tim had eaten all of the nuts. Nice job, Evil Tim. Remember this as a Cautionary Tale). So, like the Little Engine That Could, I just said, “I think I can.” Except I am not as cutesy as the LETC, so what I really said was, “How hard could this possibly be?” The answer: not so much is it hard at all. Things I learned:
- I would walk through fire (or at least on very hot pavement) to get to these nuts.
- Make twice as many as you need, because you (Evil Tim) will not be able to stop snacking on them.
- Hide them from everyone (Evil Tim). Or they will be gone.
- If you work in a kitchen, threaten to hurt anyone (Evil Tim) who tries to steal some.
- As much as folks warn you about washing sugar crystals off the sides of your pan and not banging the pot and not stirring and holding your breath or your sugar will crystallize, when you actually want it to happen, sometimes it will make you work really hard for it. Sugar is perverse that way.
- This technique works for everything from peanuts to pecans to pistachios. It even works for that don’t begin with the letter P.
I am pleased to say that our Intrepid Vegan Diner was very pleased with her whole meal, including dessert. And a “new” garnish was born. Before I tried this little experiment, we were candying nuts in other ways, but this became our new standard “candied nut.” And we always called them Vegan Nuts, as in “Gotta make some more Vegan Nuts; we’re running low.”
If you’re looking to replicate those little cones of sugary, cinnamony nuts that you can get at the mall, this one is for you. This is way cheaper, too. Nuts are kind of expensive, but chances are you already own sugar and salt, so you might as well just go for it. Just remember: once you try them, you might need a 12 Step Program to keep your cravings Under Control.
