Chuckls Sweet and Spicy Smoked Almonds with Dried Smoked Apricots

chuckls

Ingredients

• 1/3 Cup soy sauce

• 2 Tbs maple syrup (or substitute 1 tbsp blackstrap molassas)

• 1 tsp Tabasco sauce (leave out for not so hot)

• 1 Tbs chile sauce (sambal oleck or the Vietnamese Rooster brand)

• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

• 1 lb natural (raw) almonds

• 6 dried apricots, cut with kitchen sissors to almond size

• 1 &#189 Tbs kosher salt

• 1 &#189 Tbs turbinado sugar

Instructions

Whisk together the marinade (first five ingredients). Add the almonds and apricots. Let sit for 2-3 hours, stirring to recoat the ingredients occasionally. Actually, if you are in a hurry, 20 minutes will do it.

Mix the sprinkles (salt and sugar) together in a small dish. Separate the almonds from the marinade, saving the marinade. Put the almonds in a perforated veggie wok sprayed with Pam. Prepare your Egg for indirect at 300 deg or a bit less (I use a pizza stone). Add some hickory chunks or your favorite mild smoke, then cover your pizza stone with aluminum foil. Put the wok in the egg, spaced up off the pizza stone with some firebrick. Sprinkle with a bit of the sugar/salt mixture.

Notes

Let smoke for 10-15 minutes, then here's the secret. Open the egg, stir the almonds around with a wooden spoon, and baste with some of the remaining marinade. Sprinkle on more of the sugar/salt mixture. Repeat every 15-20 minutes until the marinade is gone, and so are the sprinkles. The secret is to keep basting with the marinade until it's gone. This technique will develop a nice coating on the almonds that will hold the sprinkles really well.
Cook time is an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half. Be sure to keep a close eye on the almonds during the last part of the cook, and stir often. Don't let them burn!

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