Strange-Flavor Peanuts

What something very cool and different as a little snack?  Then you have to try guai wei hua ren, or Strange Flavor Peanuts.  See that little bowl of nuts up above?  Those are the the strange flavor peanuts and they are so addicting.  They have a sweet and sour/spicy taste and every few of them as a zing from sichuan pepper corns.

They are a great little snack all on their own, but I love to make them as a little treat for guests to munch on while I'm getting the rest of dinner going.  The original recipe came from Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking by Fuchia Dunlop but I've made some tweaks to fit my taste and hopefully some of you as well.  Keep reading to find out how easy they are to make.

You will need 3/4 teaspoon of salt, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of a good chili powder (Penzeys!), 3/4 cup of white sugar, 1 teaspoon rice vinegar, 8 oz of roasted peanuts, lightly salted is good.  Now the last think you need is the sichuan pepper corns.  The original recipe called for 1/2 teaspoon of roasted and freshly ground ones.  This is fine for me.  But these are powerful babies, especially if you can get some good ones (again go to Penzey's spice) so experiment  a little and try a little more or a little less to your taste.  

I like to combine all the dry ingredients before I get started. 

Place 1/3 cup of water in your wok or pan and the 3/4 cup of sugar and put it under medium high heat.  What you are going to do is melt the sugar and take it up to about 240F, just shy of the hardball stage.  Guess what?  if you don't have a candy thermometer or an inferred one, you can still do this.  Watch the bubbles.  As they get like fish eyes, and pop very slowly and are still kind of big then you are at the right temperature.  

Add the spice mix and vinegar.  Mix.  Fast.  It is going to be a little scary as when the vinegar hits the hot sugar it gets kind of exciting.  

You should be smelling intense chili and some vinegar smells when you do this.  Add in the peanuts and kill the heat.  In Fuschia's recipe she kills the heat soon, but I have better luck with keeping it on a little longer since I'm using electric and I'm sure she has a very cool gas set up.  

You want to work fast and mix the peanuts into the mixture to coat everything well.

Once everything is coated, pour out onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Grab a couple of forks and break up the peanuts or you'll end up with brittle.  Which isn't bad, but not what we're going for here.  Just pull apart the clusters of nuts and allow to cool. 

You'll end up with some yummy treats that have a little bit of sweet, a little salty, a good chili flavor and then, zing!  the Sichuan pepper will hit you and make the end of your tongue sing.  

I should go make a batch now.