Tag: Nuts

Devilled Cashew Nuts

Helloooo friends!  Ttoday’s recipe is nuts!  But not just any nuts.  These are devilled cashew nuts and damn they are the tastiest, most more-ish little morsels around!

Devilled Cashew Nuts

The recipe for my devilled cashew nuts is based on a recipe from The Daily News Cookery Book.  First published in 1929, this book is probably the book of Sri Lankan cooking.  It’s also bonkers in parts.  I have two copies of the Daily News Cookery book – one that was given to my mum as a wedding present and a new version that I bought in Sri Lanka a few years ago.  I would have loved to do a Julia and Julia cook through of this book but there are ingredients I would not be able to get hold of and some of the measurements are based on weird Sri Lankan things that no longer exist.  Chhudu anyone?  So I might take you all on a limited express  rather than a stopping all stations journey through this book.  

These devilled cashew nuts ( or cadjunuts as Sri Lankans call them) are relatively straightforward to make so are a good introduction to this book.  

They are also a  great little snack, but when combined with a beverage?  PER-FEC-TION!!!  😍

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Here is the recipe from the Daily News. 

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The recipe calls for ground saffron.  I tried to do this but I only had a small bit of saffron and it just disappeared into nothing while I was  grinding it.   So, what I did was to soak the saffron in a small dish of warm water and then, after about 20 minutes, I tipped the saffrony flavoured water over the nuts.   I’m sure this activated them or some such too.  I let them soak in the saffron water for about 4 hours then tipped them onto a sheet of paper towels and let them dry for around the same amount of time. 

Once dry, I rubbed in salt and cayenne pepper and then followed the recipe to cook them.  If you were in a hurry, you could grind the saffron as per the recipe or leave it out. 

The smell of the toasting cashews was heavenly!

And eating them still warm from the pan was a moment of pure joy!  It was hard to save some for my cocktail but, it was going to be a long while between drinks as I am doing dry February so I did my best to save a few for the sipping. And it was worth it!

Match made in heaven!  

I’ll post the cocktail recipe separately but damn it was good too!

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These Devilled Cashew Nuts are so easy to make and definitely something you’ll go nuts for

Enjoy!

And have a great week, 

 

REPOST FROM 2016 – Two Turtledoves

Sometime last year I became obsessed on Pinterest with an American candy called a turtle.  I went from never having heard of them in my life to seeing them all over the internet.  And holy moly did they sound good!  For those of you, like me, who have spent our lives in ignorance of this delight, just listen to this:

  • A chocolate base.
  • Toppped with pecan nuts
  • Topped with caramel
  • Topped with more chocolate

There is no way on God’s green earth that they could be bad.  Supposably.  As Joey Tribbiani would say.  And depending on your definition, they were really good.  Well, they tasted delicious.

Before we get into them, just a word of explanation.  The recipe I used called them turtledoves because they used Dove Chocolate.  We used to have Dove Chocolate here – apparently not anymore.  I wonder when that happened?

My turtledoves started really well.

TurtledovesIt all started to fall apart with the caramel.  I could not get it to sit on the pecans the way I wanted it too.  I wanted it to be a perfect dome, surrounding my pecans but leaving a little bit of chocolate on the base visible.  Not ONE of them looked like that.

Turtledoves2And the more I tried to meddle with it, the worse it got.  In the end, I thought. “Nevermind.  It will all be covered with the rest of the chocolate.  It will be fine”.

Not so.  I was already on a slippery slope and the only way was down.  The final chocolate layer was a disaster!  I could not get it smooth, it was a hot day and the second I touched it, it would either melt or crack.

Before I show you the wreck of the Hersperus that was my effort, let me show how these babies should look  (The Spruce Eats)

And, oh Lord, here are mine….

Turtledoves3I know.  I’m sorry.  Two fails in a row.  Although these tasted delish, my turtles may not have been teenage or ninjas but they were mutant. Technically they weren’t even turtledoves because I could not find Dove chocolate.

They did taste good.  Really good.  Even the fussiest eater in the world was a fan.

Turtledoves4But you know food blogging can be very much style over substance so that sometimes I think it doesn’t matter how things taste as long as they look good.  In retrospect, I should have not tried to cover them entirely but just done a little splodge of caramel and one of chocolate over the top.  Next time….

But I wanted to have something that was a success, of only to soothe my wounded self-esteem.  Two fails in a row is no way to write a food blog.  So I needed a turtledove.  Fast.  Guaranteed success.

Hmmmm….

  • Chocolate
  • Caramel
  • Nuts

How about something like this?

Turtledove7

  • Baileys
  • Frangelico
  • Butterscotch Schnapps

Now that’s my kind of Turtledove!

And it brought F.Scott out of the funk caused by the Bobby Dazzler.

Turtledove6Normality has resumed in Chez Retro Food.  Well, as close as we can get ’round here anyway!

Print

Turtledove

A cocktail shooter that mirrors the flavours of the classic American turtle candy – chocolate, caramel and nuts

Ingredients

Scale
  • 30ml Butterscotch Schnapps
  • 30ml Frangelico
  • 30ml Bailey’s Irish Cream

Instructions

  1. Pour the Butterscotch Schnapps and the Frangelico into a shooter glass.
  2. Measure out the Bailey’s and pour very slowly over the back of a spoon into the glass.
  3. Enjoy!

Have a wonderful week!

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