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,