Nuts are an all time favorite around here. They give a dish or cake a delicious crunchy bite. And a handful of roasted nuts is always welcome as a snack, because nuts are also extremely healthy for you. So plenty of reasons why the nut should not be missing from your pantry. In this blog, I share with you my favorite nut dish, among others.
Fresh nuts: what is the best season for walnuts, hazelnuts and the other nuts?
The list of nuts at your disposal in the kitchen is long enough to incorporate a different nut into your dish each week. You have the choice of: peanuts, almonds, walnuts, cashews, pistachios, hazelnuts, pecans.... and I could go on and on. Whatever nut you want to get started with: no nut is as full of flavor as a fresh nut. You can even use a walnut in June that was harvested the previous fall. Because not the time of harvest, but the quality of the nut determines how long it stays fresh. That is why nuts from the nut specialist are often the best and last the longest. So the fact that a cashew nut is harvested in the first quarter of the year and a walnut falls from the tree in the fall is completely irrelevant.
Store them at home in a sealed container, jar or bag in the refrigerator and you can enjoy them for weeks to come. Freezing is also possible. If the nut is of high quality, it can keep for years when frozen.
Vegetarian dishes with nuts
You hear everywhere that nuts are a good substitute for meat. But that does depend on the nut. For example, cashews, peanuts, pistachios and almonds are full of protein. Those are the real meat substitutes. Macadamia nuts, walnuts and pecans, on the other hand, contain very little protein. They do contain a lot of unsaturated - which is healthy - fat and therefore make you feel full faster.
Simple but super tasty!
Well you can feel free to wake me up in the middle of the night for any nut dish. But there is one dish and I even stay up for it. This dish is surprisingly different than usual because it contains some unexpected ingredients, such as red rice and Jerusalem artichoke. Happy cooking!
Recipe: Roasted chicken breast with orange and cherries, dried cranberries, red rice, baked Jerusalem artichoke and nuts
Preparation time: 25 minutes- 30 minutes oven time
Requirements for 4 people:
- 4 chicken breasts
- 2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 orange, sliced, with peel
- 150 g fresh cherries, pitted (potted cherries are also fine)
- 200 g Jerusalem artichoke, peeled
- 100 g cashew nut mix
- 300 g red rice
- 50 g dried cranberries
- 10 g fresh cress
- Olive Oil
- Pepper and salt
- 50 g salted butter
- Oven dish, frying pan, pan to cook rice in
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
- Drizzle the chicken fillets with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and season further with the paprika, pepper and salt. Then place the fillets in an oven dish, spread the orange slices on top and bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven.
- During the last 10 minutes of baking time, add the cherries to the baking dish.
- While the chicken is cooking in the oven, put water on for the rice.
- Cook the red rice according to the package directions. When the rice is ready, mix in the dried cranberries.
- Meanwhile, cut the Jerusalem artichoke into wedges. Heat 50 grams of salted butter in a frying pan and fry the Jerusalem artichoke slices for 10 minutes until golden brown and tender. Add the cashew nut mixture to the pan for the last 2 minutes. Finally, season with fresh pepper.
- Are you allergic to cashews or don't like them? Then you can also replace them with almonds, pecans, walnuts or hazelnuts.
And then the presentation
Grab a nice plate and place some of the grilled chicken breast with orange and roasted cherries on it. Then use a cup or cooking ring to make a rice tower next to the chicken breast and place some fried Jerusalem artichoke with cashews next to it. Finally, garnish with a handful of fresh cress and enjoy.
Fond of the earthy flavor of nuts? Then you'll probably also love pumpkins. In this blog you can read all about Halloween, matching dishes and making a Halloween pumpkin.