Yearly the bundle would come. Greenback-store tins crammed with date pinwheel cookies, red- and green-dipped pretzels, and, better of all, what we lovingly referred to as “Dad’s Nuts.”
My accomplice’s dad made candied (however not too candy) pecans that had been cooked low and sluggish in order that the sugar hardened round them like a transparent shellac. But they had been correctly salty, too. It doesn’t matter what measurement tin arrived, these disappeared first, and each time we wished some, we’d say, “Are you able to move Dad’s nuts?” Dumb jokes. No one laughs, which makes it even higher. (They pair exceptionally nicely with apple cider Old-Fashioneds, too.)
I’m not an enormous traditionalist. However rattling, do I like little gestures, like the best way we move tins round a household. Some years I’ll reuse the tins and provides them to family members, full of cheese sablés, grapefruit peels, or leek scones. The tins are low-cost, however it’s the precept. It’s recycling at its jolliest. Over time, the tins get scratched and have tattoos from previous Scotch tape. They’re merely a vessel. What’s inside is the love. And that may be easy, too.
So, then the factor occurs. My father-in-law passes on to the subsequent life. You higher consider I discussed “dad’s nuts” in that eulogy! To a crowd of teary-eyed household.
I wanted to maintain these nuts going. I requested round for the recipe, and what got here by was a sparse doc with a suspiciously low measurement of salt and a stunning plot twist. Atop the doc, the recipe title: Grandma Miller’s Pecans.
So, all alongside, they had been truly Grandma’s Nuts.
Dad’s Nuts
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (a half stick), melted
¼ cup lite corn syrup (or maple syrup)
1 tsp salt (or 2 tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon cayenne or 1-2 teaspoons pink pepper flakes (the fats of the nuts can take it)
1 lb. pecans or no matter turns you on
Flaky salt to prime
Non-compulsory add-ins: 1 tablespoon chopped rosemary. Black pepper. Bloomed ½ teaspoon of saffron. Edible glitter.
Preheat the oven to 250. Sure, 250! We’re taking it low and sluggish at the moment. Combine melted butter with the syrup, salt, and spices in an enormous bowl. Add the pecans and blend all of it good with a spatula.
Unfold the saucy nuts on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for an hour, stirring the nuts each quarter-hour or so. The nuts will darken and odor pretty because the sugar begins to harden. It make take greater than hour as a result of ovens are bizarre, however preserve checking each 10 minutes so that they don’t burn. Add a flourish of flaky salt on the final flip or once you take them out of the oven. They’ll crisp up as they cool, so don’t panic in the event that they nonetheless look a bit sticky on the finish.
Bundle in recycled tins, if you happen to please.
It is a nice reminder that it’s additionally the proper time of 12 months to make a martini and re-watch The Thin Man.
P.S. Three starters to serve at a dinner party, and eight food writers share their holiday cookies.
