Home, Cooking: Maple-Rosemary Nuts

During the holidays, when everyone’s counters, sideboards, and kitchen islands are full of gifted cookies, fudge, and brittle, I feel like the ultimate bearer of coals to Newcastle when I bring more treats into a house. But I do like to give holiday food presents, so over the years, I’ve tried to figure out alternative recipes that are more savory than sweet. 

I first started making this nut mix, originally from Bon Appetit, about five years ago, and it quickly became my number one option for holiday gifting. It’s got a complex, crunchy maple flavor, with freshness from rosemary and a deep savoriness from smoked paprika. (Nobody eats these and says “SMOKED PAPRIKA!” But smoked paprika is the sine qua non of the Maple-Rosemary Nuts.) 

A major advantage of this recipe, especially during the bustle season, is that it is unfussy and scales up easily. There’s no need to pre-cook the wet ingredients separately, as you do with granola (another non-cookie holiday gift I’ve tried in the past); all the ingredients go in the same bowl at the same time. You can use up random bits of nuts, and don’t have to stress out too much over what you’ve got in stock, making some batches with more almonds, some with more pecans, depending on what you happen to have left. 

You can also make three batches at once, so long as you’re willing to vigilantly switch the pans’ position in the oven a couple times during baking. (I find that about half a batch is a good amount for gifting, so that’s six households checked off the list.) And if you want to crank up an assembly line on a Saturday morning, baking off six or nine batches in a day, you can reuse the mixing bowls, tablespoons, and cup measures, keeping dish-doing to a minimum. 

These nuts also make your house smell amazing, lingering as a piney, sweet, nutty presence that could be an inspiration for designers of holiday-themed aromatherapy candles. 

Maple-Rosemary Nuts, adapted from Alison Roman, in Bon Appetit  

Ingredients: 

• 3 cups total mix of the larger types of showboat nuts: Whole pecans, walnuts, almonds, and cashews
• ¼ cup smaller, “decorative glue between the big guys” nuts: Pumpkin seeds (pepitas), sunflower seeds, cashew pieces, walnut pieces, pecan pieces, slivered almonds, sliced almonds
• ⅓ cup pure maple syrup — I use Sticky Pete’s, from the farmers’ market!
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp rosemary leaves, chopped finely. It really makes a difference to use fresh rosemary in this, and is worth the effort
• 1 tsp pimentón de la Vera, or Spanish smoked paprika, either hot or sweet
• 1 tsp kosher salt 

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350. Put all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly. Pour onto a parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet. 
2. Total cooking time will be between 20 and 25 minutes. The proper caramelization of these nuts is the absolute key to a good outcome. Somewhat more fussily than might otherwise be your habit, check the nuts at 10 minutes, then every five minutes thereafter, stirring each time to redistribute the maple syrup coating, and switching pans around to different places in the oven. The pecans will cook fastest, so take special care when they’re in the mix. 
3. When you take the pan out, do one more stir for redistribution of the good maple-rosemary goop, then spread the mixture into a flat layer on the pan so that the nuts dry in a sheet and each clump gets a chance to form a good coating. Cool completely before breaking up. 
4. The original recipe recommends that this recipe stores, airtight (as in an OxoPop container) and at room temperature, for up to two days, but I have consumed these nuts up to a week after making them and found them still to be good. I have also frozen them in a well-sealed Ziploc, for up to a few months, and had them thaw out well, if perhaps a little more on the sticky side than the crunchy.