Peanut Snack from Oaxaca

Recipe from The Food and Life of Oaxaca,

Every afternoon,vendors walk around the Zocalo selling these delicious peanuts with unpeeled garlic and dried chiles. There they use hotter-than-hell chiltepin chiles, tiny balls of fire but I just brought one pound of fruity dried just-spicy-enough serrano chiles from Veracruz and I made a batch for company on Saturday.

They are easy to make but if you don’t home-rendered lard you will be missing one extra layer of flavor.  Never mind. Just make them and enjoy.

Botana de Cacahuates

Peanut Snack

This is one of the perennial street snacks sold all around Oaxaca City.  Eventually I was able to reproduce it from memory.  The peanuts used there are a larger variety, but the taste is identical.  Be sure to use a medium-coarse salt like kosher salt.   The garlic is peeled and eaten along with the peanuts.

Though strictly speaking this should be served hot, I confess that when I started nibbling on a bunch of room-temperature  leftovers, they were so delicious I couldn’t stop.

4 tablespoons lard (preferably home-rendered; see page 000) or vegetable oil

2 1/2 cups raw peanuts, unpeeled

1 head of garlic broken into cloves, unpeeled

2 tablespoons chile pequín (see page 000) or other tiny chiles

2 teaspoons kosher salt, or to taste

Juice of 2 limes

In a large, heavy skillet, heat the lard over medium-high heat until almost rippling.  Add the peanuts, garlic, and chiles.  Cook, stirring constantly, for 10 -12 minutes or until the peanuts skins have darkened.  Add the salt and lime juices to the pan and give another good stir.  Serve at once.

YIELD: About 2 1/2 cups