I love pecans and every other nut because they add a crunchy texture and an earthy sweet — nuttier — flavor to food.
I lightly toast my nuts to enhance their flavor. Toasting or lightly roasting nuts removes all the raw green, slightly astringent flavors that you taste when they are uncooked. This is especially true with walnuts. Almonds, hazelnuts and pecans are crisp and lightly caramelized. Even seeds are so much better with a little heat to bring out their deeper more nuanced flavors. Think sesame seeds, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds. The volatile oils are released, and the seeds are lightly browned making them taste so much more flavorful.
I learned to toast nuts from my mother, and she learned from her mother. You toast nuts on a cookie sheet (or sheet pan) in a heated oven set on a low heat. The low heat is crucial because nuts burn both easily and quickly. This is due to the high percentage of oil in the nuts. Pecans burn particularly fast and can go from deliciously lightly toasted to inedible and acrid in a matter of a minute.
The first time that I saw someone “toast” nuts in a skillet on top of the stovetop, I was flabbergasted. Because the heat is direct, it heats the metal pan and that heat is transferred to the surface of the food making contact with the pan. The side of the food exposed to the direct heat will continue to cook until it is moved. Maybe the problem is in our terminology. As recipe writers, we tell people to “toast” their nuts and we really should be telling them to “roast” their nuts. If you cook with nuts and seeds a lot, you have probably already figured out that the best way to toast them is in an oven. But if you are still toasting them on the stovetop, you will love the oven method. Not only do you get better results, it is also easier, and you don’t have to tend to it as much.
