Cashews are a popular nut used in many dishes, but they are expensive due to their harvesting conditions and short shelf life. Roasting cashews at home is a simple process, and they can be flavored with salt, sugar, or other ingredients. Cashews are technically not a nut, but the exposed seed of a sweet fruit. When roasting cashews, it is important to be aware of the potential for allergic reactions and to control the roasting process to avoid burning.
The cashew fruit, widely grown throughout the equatorial tropics, is one of the most popular nuts in the world. It is used as an ingredient in savory dishes, as well as other food preparations, but is most common commercially as a roasted snack. They are relatively expensive due to the harvesting conditions and their rather short shelf life. One way to mitigate that cost is to roast cashews at home, a simple process. Raw cashews can be roasted dry or wet, flavored or unseasoned, in a skillet, oven, or any other heat source.
Technically, the cashew is not a nut, but the exposed seed of a sweet fruit called a drupe. The cashew nut has more in common with pitted fruits like peaches and cherries. Mass production of roasted cashews will normally cook the seed fully enclosed, making its outer shell more brittle, easier to crack and separate.
Even the term dry roasted cashews is somewhat of a misnomer. A moist roast adds additional oils such as butter or a frying liquid to the cooking process. Dry roasting doesn’t; raw cashews are spread over a simple pan and placed over the heat of a stove or exposed to the heat of an oven. The heat releases natural cashew oils and then cooks in its moist medium. The addition of evaporative aids such as the circulating air of convection ovens serves primarily to control the propensity of oils to burn.
Roasted cashews are delicious on their own, but to suit personal tastes, they’re often flavored. The basic improvement includes salt and/or sugar, to be sprinkled after roasting. Sugar, either dissolved in a syrup or made into a caramel with added butterfat, can coat raw cashews before roasting. Other common flavors are usually extensions of the two base flavors and can include pungent wasabi powder or a chocolate coating.
A few additional points should be added when considering roasting cashews at home. Immature, still green, raw walnuts contain a corrosive and toxic compound called urushiol. Proper roasting will destroy and inactivate it, but droplets of it can suspend in smoke and water vapor. On rare occasions it can irritate the lungs and cause a severe allergic reaction if inhaled. When roasting nuts in general, cashews burn easily and should be tossed, stirred, and controlled well during the roasting process.
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