Roasted Cashews

Ours being a Bengali home, so like a typical Bengali home it’s usually egg omelette or papads with warm cups of tea for our friends who like to visit us all of a sudden, you know the kind of Bengali madness I am talking about which includes afternoon 3’0 clock friend or a distant relative who is visiting north of Kolkata just for couple of works he has to attend and then he realizes he has to revive the lost connection.

But sometimes when our Veggie friends drop in, that leaves me little puzzled about snacks or accompaniments. No, I do think if you have time then you can always hit straight to the kitchen and make something fresh and from scratch but when the guest is only going to spend couple of hours, generally they would love to have long chit-chats with you rather than see you sweating in kitchen.

Also many a times my daughter comes back home with her bunch of friends after a nice playtime at park. One of who is little allergic to egg, well she also finds it difficult to have anything made with egg which even includes cakes or muffins.

For this reason now I have started to keep a jar of home-toasted/roasted cashews always. These roasted cashews accompanies well with our evening teas as well. Kids like them munching with a chilled glass of orange squash or simple nimbo pani.
Also keeping in mind that these roasted cashews are excellent source of minerals and vitamins. These are delicious munching snacks for growing up kids and senior citizens as well. Sometimes when you are fasting, you can also include these roasted cashews in your fasting menu or Vrat Ka Khana.

Usually you can have these when you are on a fast or doing a navaratri fast (which is the longest 9-10 days of severe fasting in the month of April) and these are also offered to goddess Durga.This topic of fasting will be dealt with in length in coming post.

Now to the Recipe

Roasted cashews

 Recipe Requirements

About 2 cups of cashews

1 tbs of ghee or butter

1 tsp of black pepper
½ tsp of freshly prepared grounded cumin

1 tsp of salt

Method
Heat up a kadhai/saucepan , on a medium flame toast the cashews for 5-8 mints.
Now lower the flame and keep toasting cashews for another 3-4 mints, stirring in frequent gaps.
When they turn brownish or deep colour, stop the flame.

Now add in 1 tbs of ghee or butter.

Alternately you can toast them in Oven as well.

Add the seasonings black pepper powder, freshly prepared grounded cumin and salt.
Keep it sometimes for cooling.When cooled , store them in air tight containers.

This stays fresh for 7-10 days.

And if you refridgerate them stays fresh for 4-5 months.

Sending this post to Kalyani who is hosting Food For Fasting- Vrat Ka Khana  a food event.

Happy cooking Friends.