Ah, the winter grind of January is now behind us, heralded (on one hand anyway) with the arrival of one of the best fishing days of the year – Super Bowl Weekend.
With a fair portion of the developed world watching the game, if for nothing else than the commercials and an excuse to hold a beer-focused party in the middle of winter, many a stream and river in the Northern Rockies will be devoid of much traffic on Sunday, particularly by the time things warm up enough to fish.
In a tip of the hat to those who will be entertaining this weekend, here’s an shamefully easy and damned tasty addition to your party spread – Hot Damn Toasted Pecans.
As part of a New Year commitment to eat more thoughtfully, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I have been enjoying a lot more salad thus far in 2017; one of our favorites has been a big Caesar salad with an incredibly tasty house-made dressing (anchovy paste is a miracle font of umami goodness). And we’ve been using toasted nuts in place of croutons to shave empty carb calories off.
These pecans have taken that salad to a whole new level, and we think they’re even better than a perfectly toasted crouton right out of the oven (and that’s saying something if you’ve toasted fresh french bread croutons at home…).
Don’t tell your party guests (or your spouse) how easy these are to make, and make a double or triple recipe if you have a group coming over – they’ll be gone in no time.
2 cups pecans or pecan pieces
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
3/4 tsp good kosher salt
1/2 tsp mustard powder
1/2 tsp granulated garlic or garlic powder
1/2 tsp Louisiana hot sauce
1/2 tsp good chile powder or 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)
Preheat your oven to 300.
Melt the butter, then whisk in the salt, mustard powder, garlic, hot sauce, and chile or cayenne.
Pour over the pecans in a small bowl, stir to coat them evenly, then scrape (get all that magic butter sauce) into a large cast iron skillet, large enough that the nuts are in more or less one layer if possible.
Pop into the oven and roast until the nuts are well-toasted and you can easily smell the spices when you open the oven, roughly 30 minutes, stirring every 10.
Cool slightly and go to it. They’re jaw-dropping when warm and damned good the rest of the time.
Enjoy.
