Spiced Roasted Hazelnuts

By Kath Dedon

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Spiced Roasted Hazelnuts is an adaptation of Thomas Keller’s recipe for Spiced Mixed Nuts in Ad Hoc at Home. Keller uses raw hazelnuts, pecans, and walnuts. I decided to just use hazelnuts.

If you are able to find blanched hazelnuts (nuts that have had the skin removed), this is a quick recipe. The hazelnuts I bought had skins so I had to remove them. That was the most time-consuming part of the recipe.

I found Alice Medrich’s method for peeling hazelnuts online. In this video, she shows Julia Child how to do it. Using her method, I put the 3 cups of hazelnuts and 9 tablespoons of baking soda into 6 cups of boiling water in a tall 8-quart pot. Even in the large pot, I had to stir it often to keep it from boiling over. So if you try this, use a tall pot! After they boiled for 3 minutes, I drained them and put them into a large bowl of ice water. I then had to take the skin off of each nut. The skins came off very easily, but it took a bit of time. As I peeled them, I put them on a kitchen towel to dry them off. When all of the nuts are skinned, roll them in the towel to further dry them. (I was glad I used an old towel, because it did become stained from the skins.)

Once you have the hazelnuts skinned, you’re ready to proceed with the recipe.

Looking at the ingredients, I wondered what made the nuts spicy. It turns out that piment d’Espelette is quite spicy. It’s a type of paprika that is used in the Basque region of southern France. This is a new seasoning for me; I can’t wait to try it in other things!

I tasted the spiced oil before adding the roasted nuts and decided that it needed more salt. Keller uses ¼ teaspoon; I increased it to ½ teaspoon.

These Spiced Roasted Hazelnuts are quite tasty! I’m sure I’ll be making this again. I may try Keller’s combo of hazelnuts, pecans, and walnuts.

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Spiced Roasted Hazelnuts

(Adapted from Thomas Keller’s recipe in Ad Hoc at Home)

(print the recipe)

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Makes 3 cups

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3 cups raw blanched hazelnuts (see recipe notes above)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon sweet paprika

½ teaspoon piment d’Espelette

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

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1. Preheat the oven to 350˚.

2. Mix the olive oil, sweet paprika, piment d’Espelette, and salt together in a medium bowl.

3. Add the nuts to the oil mixture and stir well so that all of the nuts are evenly covered with the oil.

4. Spread the nuts out on a large rimmed baking sheet, lined with parchment paper if you wish.

5. Roast the nuts for about 20 minutes. Allow them to cool completely on the baking sheet before using or storing.