Wonderful

Wonderful shelled pistachios come in a variety of flavors, including BBQ, sea salt/vinegar, and honey roasted, but the clear favorite—and the one that’s often sold out in stores—is the version that packs the most heat with a seasoning blend that includes garlic, vinegar, and ground red chili peppers.

The seasoning blend is the secret to the great taste of these addictive snacking nuts and to make a hot and sour flavor, you’ll need a few special ingredients. The real thing contains dry tabasco peppers, but the ground tabasco peppers I found were not hot enough for a good clone, so I’m enhancing the formula with ground cayenne pepper. Also, I found that ground tabasco pepper was not as fine as ground cayenne pepper, so I ground the pepper up even more in a coffee grinder and sifted out the fine powder for the recipe, which worked great.

For my Wonderful Chili Roasted Pistachios recipe, you’ll also want to grind up the nutritional yeast, which is there to add an umami flavor, just like MSG. Nutritional yeast usually comes in small flakes, and you’ll want to transform it into a fine powder like everything else. For a sour flavor that hits all the right notes, you’ll need citric acid (very sour), malic acid (less sour), and powdered vinegar (even less sour), all of which can be found online. If you can't track down malic acid, you can replace it with more citric acid.

After combining the ingredients for the magical seasoning, sprinkle 1¾ teaspoons of the blend over each cup of moistened unsalted pistachios, and lightly roast until dry.

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