You Should Freeze Nuts
You think you love nuts, but you’ve never loved a nut the way you love frozen nuts.
Consider a cashew nut, a nut cadillac, a nut that is so difficult to harvest and process that you would pay three to four times more per pound for it than the humble peanuts lying next door in a mixed nut bowl.
My claim is that cashews are a normal nut raw at room temperature. The problem with room temperature cashews is that they are soft nuts. It is a chewy nut and therefore sticks a little in the teeth, unlike pure nuts such as the so-called “superfood”, raw almonds. Thawed cashews are a retirement nut that tastes good enough but doesn’t make any sense.
Freezing nuts keeps them fresh longer
A few years ago, when I briefly lost his mind and was convinced that I was not only vegan, but also a vegan, which was preparing her own nut cheeses, I bought four pounds of raw cashew nuts from a local ( Sahadi’s *, Brooklyn). New York, semi-humane $ 9.99 a pound for the giants, but it’s still $ 40 nuts, which is, yes, nuts).
I saved my king’s ransom of raw cashews in the freezer, which is essential in preventing any nuts from going rancid- you keep your grains and nuts in the freezer, right? They look good on the counter in different sized glass jars, but the nuts last only a few months when stored at room temperature . In the refrigerator they will last for a year, and in the freezer – up to two years . Freezing nuts protects your investment.
Frozen cashews are the only cashews worth eating
As soon as it became clear that I would never make nut cheese , I started snacking on my cashew clutch. And I discovered by accident that frozen cashews are the best cashews. It’s cold, crunchy, cracking on the teeth with a bright, clean click that’s so sweet it throws all memories of smaller, warmer cashews into the dustbin of history. Lonely frozen cashews are a revelation: you would never dare to ditch a handful of frozen cashews, because each nut is a pleasure in and of itself.
Those of a certain age will remember the divine pleasure of freezing Charleston Chew. Charleston Chew at room temperature was a disappointing achievement in candy consumption, and could be compared to the salt water toffee on the gratification effort matrix: good because it had chocolate and sugar in it, and bad because it was so chewy that it vomited everything out. of us. fillings in pursuit of a single bite. But freeze Charleston Chew for a hard, crunchy, easy-bite treat, and the well-defined line between nougat and chocolate exoskeleton is a pleasure to behold. The same is the case with warm and frozen cashews.
Cashews are a nut that improves most noticeably when frozen, but frozen walnuts, almonds, and pine nuts get an extra cold crunch when stored in the freezer. Be sure to store your nuts in freezer-safe bags with suction to create a vacuum seal.
* It looks like Sahadi cashews are either more expensive if you buy them online or they have increased in value. They are still the best whole raw cashews I’ve come across. If you don’t care about cashew size, Trader Joe’s has a decent one for a decent price.