Almonds


 
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Or this.

Candied Nuts
6 cups sugar
3 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons ginger powder
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
6 cups whole pecans or walnuts
Vegetable oil, for frying

In a large bowl combine sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.

Blanch nuts in boiling water for 1 minute. Drain and dry them off in a kitchen towel. Lightly toss them into the sugar mixture until coated. Remove nuts, and set aside the sugar spice mixture.

Bring the oil in a deep fryer or a heavy-bottomed pan to 330 to 350 degrees-F (do not let the oil burn). *Hint: place 1 nut in the oil and when it starts to sizzle, add the rest of the nuts.

Fry approximately 1 minute, the nuts will turn golden in color, and float. Remove from the oil and add directly to the sugar mixture and toss again. Carefully remove nuts and shake off excess sugar, let cool and serve.
 
Or this.

Spiced Candied Nuts
Ingredients:

Makes 4 cups

4-6 cups peanut oil or canola oil for deep-frying
1 tsp. salt
1/4-tsp. freshly ground pepper
1/2-tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2-tsp. cayenne pepper
4 cups walnut or pecan halves
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted

Directions:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
2. Heat the oil in a deep fryer or deep pot to 350 degrees F to 375 degrees F.
3. Measure the salt, pepper, cinnamon, and cayenne into a small bowl and mix well.
4. Holding the nuts in a sieve, dip them briefly into the boiling water, about 1 minute for large halves.
5. Immediately transfer to a bowl. You want a little water to remain on the nuts. (Blanching removes some of the tannins and makes the nuts taste very sweet.)
6. While still hot and wet, toss them with the powdered sugar. The sugar will melt and liquefy.
7. Keep stirring and tossing until all the sugar has melted.
8. If hunks of unmelted sugar remain on the nuts, they will not fry properly.
9. Stir the nuts again just before frying.
10. Using a large slotted spoon and working in small batches, transfer the nuts to the hot oil, allowing the foam to subside before adding the next spoonful. (Otherwise, the oil could foam over and burn you.)
11. Fry until medium brown, about 1 minute for large halves. Be careful not to overcook, as the nuts will continue to cook a little after they are removed from the fryer.
12. Scatter on an unlined baking sheet to cool slightly.
13. While still warm, transfer the nuts to a bowl and sprinkle evenly with about half the spice mix.
14. Toss well to distribute the spice and then taste a nut.
15. Add more spice mix to taste and toss well after each addition.
16. When cool, pack in a clean, tightly sealed jar.
 
Wow, look at you go Chris! Thanks for those ... I don't have a deep fryer so I will try the first one.
 
Wow! Ask and ye shall receive. Thanks everyone, these look great. I plan on trying a couple this weekend.

Shawn: The coating I'm recalling right now as I salivate over the keyboard is light, but the nuts do have a slight crunch. There's a hockey game tonight so I might have to visit that stand and get some--for research purposes.

In the meantime, I saw in this month's KCBS Bullsheet, a recipe for Spiced Pecans With Rum Glaze. Might try that too. Let's see, three parts rum for the cook, one for the nuts ...
 
Did a batch of almonds with the Bullsheet Spiced Pecan With Rum glaze recipe. Good, but didn't have the harder candy coating I now realize I was looking for. Also could use more sugar. Will likely modify by adding more sugar (I'm assuming that gives the harder coating?), and perhaps some nutmeg like a recipe above.

BASKETS
Was browsing through the grill section yesterday of the local Super Wally (it's out in the old auxilliary area where the plants are in the summer) and saw Disposable Grill Toppers for 94 cents each! Perfect for smoking nuts, or for lots of uses I've yet to think of. 13" diam.

Photo of grill topper
(Moderator: Replaced inline photo with link to photo.)

Have a a brisket, butt, and ribs going now. Will smoke some almonds when everything's done.

Question: I bought some raw salted almonds for smoking. If they're salted already, is it necessary to brine them?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> ...If they're salted already, is it necessary to brine them?... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Do you think they were salt brined already or just had some salt sprinkled on? Not really sure Art, but if it's the latter you probably won't oversalt them by brining ... You might really like what the brining does to the nut meat texture and moisture, maybe try brining half of the batch and compare the two for yourself.

If you want hickory smoked almonds, I would encourage you to try to keep your temp down and smoke them for at least several hours.

I got the idea to smoke for a long time from a deli/smokehouse website that stated they smoked their almonds for 2-3 DAYS. I didn't think the ones I had done had enough smoke flavour then the light came on: 'Eureka! They must need more smoke!'
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, but they will burn if cooked too hot so one must reduce the temp in order to smoke them longer.

Cool grill topper. Do you think you might be able to get several uses out of the disposable(will they withstand a cleaning)?
 
If you do brine some Art and you won't have enough time to let them dry, I threw some that were still wet in a 100ºF oven for a couple of hours to finish them up and it worked fine.
 
It's been several days and they are even better, now. I like how they kind of POP in your mouth when you eat them. Awesome. Thanks so much for the brining idea.

And, I HIGHLY suggest tossing some (right when they come out of the smoker) with Tabasco. Don't super coat them, just a light toss to get some flavor. After a few days, you'll be amazed how good they are. My Habanero and Chipotle ones are long gone.
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Brining looks like the way to go. I'll wait for a day when I have the time. Sounds great, especially the hot sauce variation. A basket of mome made almonds, jerky, and fresh and smoked polish sausage looks like the Christmas gifts I'll be putting together for friends next weekend.

Shawn, on the grill topper, these things look pretty sturdy. You can bend them and they snap back. I'd say you can scrub and get a few uses out of them. Myself, considering what I spend on this hobby, I'm content to pitch them at .94 a pop and have one less thing to clean.
 
Amazon is selling them from cooking.com, but if you buy it directly from cooking.com you save $2 in shipping... So it's only $27.90 rather than $29.90
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Russ:
Amazon is selling those brinkmann baskets from cooking.com, but if you buy it directly from cooking.com you save $2 in shipping... So it's only $27.90 rather than $29.90 <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Question - could you just use one of those foil pans and poke a bunch of holes in it? I went out and bought 18 cups of almonds today after reading all this thread and im going to try it tomorrow. I'm going to use my offset though, so there wont be any smoke coming from the bottom, but instead from all around...Will that work??
 
If the smoke got on them, I don't see why it wouldn't work. You do want a lot of smoke going, though. They really need it to get a smoky flavor. The coolest part is the brining. Salty flavor without dusty residue. The cooking part, smoke or not, gives them the mouth POP. The smoke makes them smoke flavored. So, if you didn't want them really smoky (like for candied) it wouldn't be a big deal.

Go ahead and try it. Worse case scenario, they aren't really smoky and you candy or tabasco them.
 
OK I gotta question, the smoked almond methods on this site are pretty different from the ones listed above. Above, someone said 200F for 6 hours, I believe. The recipe section says 325F or so for like an hour or so. So, question is, what's best? I guess only testing will tell, but I've got 18 cups sitting in brine right now and am not wanting to test on all these (I guess I should've started with less!)

Also, what oil is good to soak them in, butter? Or use a sprayer to spray on some olive or canola? Do they need to be soaked in the oil or just lightly sprayed?

Also, you say hickory, other sites say light wood like apple. Unfortunately all I have right now are pecan and hickory. I guess I could use half and half!
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> ... The recipe section says 325F or so for like an hour or so. So, question is, what's best?... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Russ, I haven't tried brined ones on a short 325F cook, only on the long cook so I can't offer an opinion. In either case please report back to let us know what you think of them.

I find that in the short cooks (not brined) they don't take on enough smoke flavour for my liking. To give them more smoke I came up with a longer cook at lower temperature.

I have only ever used extra virgin olive oil. I'm sure canola oil would be fine as well.
 
Russ,

The recipes I described in the Smoked Nuts article are basically oven recipes adapted to the WSM to give them a little bit of smoke flavor.

I have no idea how the high temp method would work with brined nuts. If you've already brined them, I would go with the low temp method, since it apparently works.

Regards,
Chris
 
Thanks, sounds like good advice!

I'll stick with extra virgin olive oil also. I'm going to use my oil sprayer and just spray them until shiny with a nice coat.

Oh and I'm going to try starting my fire with my new weed burner ARR ARR!!
 
Looks good Russ, how big are those pans? Gee, a hinged lid for WSM would sure be nice ... weed burner looks like a Tiger Torch ... not suitable for my wooden deck
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but cool pit starter <thumbs up>

Have you checked the nuts yet? They will be soft while they are hot but they firm up while cooling.

From above, sounds like you are doing the cooler cook. If you haven't already I'd suggest you start sampling some every hour for smoke level and doneness, every thirty minutes if they seem like they are nearly cooked and in danger of overcooking.

Wish I had a better answer on duration @ temp ºF. On both of my brined nuts cooks I cooked the nuts for as long as it seemed they could stand without burning. Some, particulary the top tray in my stack and especially on the cook where honey was used in the brine got a bit dark.
 
They're off, I made 4 batches already. Jalapeno, Habanero, Chipotle, and "Danger!" which has chili powder, cayenne powder, and habanero. They all taste great. I ended up taking them off after only 3 hours. My Pitts & Spitts smoker seems to cook a LOT faster than my WSM... I just found another big bag of almonds in the pantry and threw them on. They weren't brined, but I'm going to try adding some salt and other flavors afterwards to see the difference. The first batches are wonderful, and smoked all the way through.
 
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