The house is smelling wonderfully savory right now as these spiced nuts toast up in the oven. They need to bake and cool in the next two hours to be a hostess gift for a dinner party we're going to tonight. After a little poking around online, I picked a recipe and more-or-less stuck to the script, except I replaced the frothy egg white spice binding agent with olive oil since the hostess is vegan.
Heat oven to 275. Toss together in a bowl 2 cups of nuts, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and these spices:
1/2 t chili powder
1/2 t cumin
1/2 t curry powder
1/4 t cayenne pepper
1/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t powdered ginger
I threw dash of salt in there and a bit of garlic powder too to replace the "garlic salt" the recipe called for (1/2 t). It was just a few weeks ago that I excavated the old shaker of Lawry's Garlic salt from the depths of my cabinet and read the ingredients with alarm... modified food starch and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, blech. I used to put that shit on everything in my undergrad years. Back then, cooking meant macaroni and cheese and gourmet meant a shake of ol' garlicky L.
Once the nuts are coated with the oil and spices, spread them on a baking sheet so they form a single layer. Bake at 275 for 15 minutes, stir, then lower the heat to 225 and let it go for an hour, stirring occasionally. I just had a taste test and the nuts are picking up the curry flavor much more than my baked potato fries last week did! In fact the curry with the toasty nut flavor is a perfect combination. At first I thought they might need more salt, but all of the other flavors linger nicely with these proportions.
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