Pictorial: Roasted Peanuts with Nam Yu

[hzrt8w]

Pictorial Recipe

Roasted Peanuts with Nam Yu (南乳肉花生)

I grew up eating this style of roasted peanuts using Nam Yu (Fermented Red Beancurds). It is slightly sweet, slight salty and full of flavor. Occassionally I would find them in Asian grocery stores. To make this great snack at home is quite easy.

Picture of the finished dish:

Serving Suggestion: 20

Preparations:

Main ingredients:

- 5 packs of raw peanuts with skin, 12 oz each (total about 3.5 lb)

- Nam Yu (Fermented red beancurds)

It's important to use the raw peanuts with skin.

Take 3 small cubes of nam yu. Place in a small bowl. Add 1/8 cup of water, 1/2 to 1 tsp of salt, 2 tsp of sugar.

Smash the nam yu and mix with the salt/sugar/water well.

Cooking Instructions:

Start by pre-heating a wok with high stove burner setting.

Add the raw peanuts. (No oil is needed. This is simply dry roasting.)

Keep stirring and not let the peanuts get burnt.

Pour the nam yu mixture onto the peanuts.

Keep stirring and mix the nam yu flavoring in the peanuts. Dry roast using the wok for a few more minutes.

Need to repeat this process. Add at least one more round of nam yu/salt/sugar mixture and roast for a few more minutes.

If you have an adequate heat source, you may continue the roasting on the wok to finish. My stove burner is not strong enough. I transferred the peanuts to a baking pan and finished the roasting in the oven.

Set the oven at 400'F. Roast the peanut for about 40 minutes. Every 10-15 minutes, stir the peanuts around so that the ones on the top will not get burnt.

This is how they looked after 40 minutes of roasting.

The snack is ready.

Edited May 25, 2006 by hzrt8w (log)

[Chris Amirault]

Uh oh. This looks dangerously good. Thanks, as always, Ah Leung! What do you eat them with? I'm thinking beer....

[Tepee]

I've never seen this before either. Yum! If only I can squeeze some time to make this for our trip up the hills on Tuesday. Peanuts and booze. Yes!

[AzianBrewer]

I think this is great with a bowl of thick white jook (congee).

[jtnippon1985]

Made this yesterday, and it is SUPERB! I have it in a baggy at work, along with my sister's ultra healthy nutrient-packed home-made granola. Thanks again!

[hzrt8w]

Thank you for the testimony, John. Did you resolve to using the oven to roast the peanuts like I did? Or you did it all on a wok/pan?

I am about to make a second batch. See if I can get some better result this time - not have too many burnt peanuts.

80% of my last batch went to my wife's snack jar.

[jtnippon1985]

I actually chose to do the entire thing with the wok, worked out swell, I did however, decide to do two more doses of the Nam Yu mixture. I'm almost tempted to do another batch, even though I have enough on hand as it is, haha!

Edited June 7, 2006 by jtnippon1985 (log)

[jeniac42]

Oh, this looks simple and very delicious. I think I might spend some time this weekend making these and a couple other kinds of flavored nuts.

[Chris Amirault]

So, if I wanted to serve these with a meal, are they pre-dinner snacks? Or congee accompaniments? Or...?

[jtnippon1985]

Hehe, funny you should mention congee, chris. I decided to have a small bowl of them this morning with my congee, and it turned out great.

PS: hzrt8w, I made the fried bass w/ bean curd sticks and it turned out fabulous. I'm going to post pictures tomorrow so you can see how it came out.

[hzrt8w]

I made my second batch a few days ago. This time it turned out better. I had less burnt peanuts. I roasted them in the oven at 350F instead of 400F for about the same time (40 minutes).

Based on jtnippon1985's post, I increased my dose of nam yu too and it turned out indeed better than my first batch. I love the flavor. I love this feedback loop! The nam yu really brings a lot of flavor. My little unsung hero.

[Toliver]

Based on jtnippon1985's post, I increased my dose of nam yu too and it turned out indeed better than my first batch.  I love the flavor.  I love this feedback loop!      The nam yu really brings a lot of flavor.  My little unsung hero.

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jtnippon1985's added two more batches of nam yu. So you'd recommend tripling the portion of nam yu in the original recipe?

[hzrt8w]

jtnippon1985's added two more batches of nam yu.  So you'd recommend tripling the portion of nam yu in the original recipe?

←

In my first batch (the recipe posted), I used 2 rounds of nam yu, each round with 3 small cubes of nam yu in the bowl and smashed them.

In my second batch, I used 3 rounds of nam yu, each round with 4 small cubes of nam yu in the bowl and smashed them. So quantity wise I doubled the dosage of nam yu. (I reduced the salt amount for each round so the total salt quantity is still about 1-2 tsp for 3.5 lb of raw peanuts.)

You may adjust all these for your personal taste.

[mrbigjas]

i made these on sunday and they are SO GOOD.

i didn't have the red nam yu, but i do have the spicy white kind--i don't remember seeing the red kind at the store but i'm going to look for it next time.

this stuff is like a miracle ingredient. it makes everything better. i can't get over how good it is.

[hzrt8w]

i didn't have the red nam yu, but i do have the spicy white kind--i don't remember seeing the red kind at the store but i'm going to look for it next time.

←

You might just have created a new entry in Chinese snack food! Thanks mrbigjas. I will try it with some fu yu next time. That's wonderful! I love this feedback loop!

[mrbigjas]

i didn't have the red nam yu, but i do have the spicy white kind--i don't remember seeing the red kind at the store but i'm going to look for it next time.

←

You might just have created a new entry in Chinese snack food! Thanks mrbigjas. I will try it with some fu yu next time. That's wonderful! I love this feedback loop!

←

oh i get it now--i didn't know the name of the spicy kind. so 'yu' is the name for fermented tofu? and 'nam' is the red, and 'fu' is spicy? got it.

can i ask one more question? why roast them in the pan at all? why not just toss them with the nam yu sauce and put them in the oven, stirring occasionally and adding more nam yu sauce once or twice during the roasting process? does the pan do anything?

[mudbug]

Has anyone tried this with any other nut? cashews? almonds? hazelnuts? macadamia?

[hzrt8w]

oh i get it now--i didn't know the name of the spicy kind.  so 'yu' is the name for fermented tofu?  and 'nam' is the red, and 'fu' is spicy?  got it.

can i ask one more question?  why roast them in the pan at all?  why not just toss them with the nam yu sauce and put them in the oven, stirring occasionally and adding more nam yu sauce once or twice during the roasting process?  does the pan do anything?

←

Er.... no. "yu" means "milk" in Chinese. It is referring to fermented tofu. "fu" means fermented. So "fu yu" is fermented tofu.

The word "nam" doesn't mean red. Literally it means "south". Why is it called "south"? I read somewhere that it is referring to the way "southerners" make the fermented tofu. But "south" to whom I was not sure.

I have seen the roasting done strictly on a wok from a street vendor in Guangzhou. I tried to mimic that. For me it's mostly getting the nam yu mixture evenly spreaded (while heated) over the peanuts.

[mrbigjas]

interesting, thanks. i think i'm going to try it again, but only using the oven, to see if i can get them more evenly roasted without all the burned spots i got the other day.

[hzrt8w]

Supplemental:

An update:

I got around to do a few more batches of Nam Yu Peanuts since this pictorial recipe was published. I had tried using only fermented bean curd (fu yu) once. It did not do it for me. The taste was rather bland. We really need to "kick" from Nam Yu to flavor the peanuts.

Since then I have been doing a mix: About 2-3 small cubes of Nam Yu and 1 cube of Fu Yu to every pound of peanuts. I use a blender to smash these fermented bean curds and dissolve them in water, along with the addition of sugar and salt, then slowly add the mix to the peanuts while roasting.

[Chris Amirault]

Just made a huge batch and added some dark soy to the mix. They're great.

[Chris Amirault]

Just made this winter's batch and learned an important tip the hard way: don't pour the nam yu mixture onto the peanuts while they're in the wok; the sauce will stick to the bottom and burn.

Instead, do as Ah Leung suggests: put the roasted nuts into a cold pan, pour the sauce over, and then cook them in the oven. Even with a slight loss of sauce due to the burn, these turned out, again, fantastic. I'll be serving them before dinner with Audrey Saunders's Earl Grey Marteani.

[menuinprogress]

I made a batch of these yesterday. Is this the right kind of bean curd to use?

It was cut into cubes, but had a more brownish color than that pictured by Ah Leung.

I did 3 12oz packages of nuts. For the sauce I used 5 chunks of bean curd.

I wok-roasted the nuts one package at a time. After roasting, I put the nuts in a cold pan, stirred in about half of the sauce and put them in the oven pre-heated to 350°F.

I did four 10-minute intervals, stirring after each (and adding some more sauce the first few times until I ran out). My nuts didn't seem like they were done (still chewy), so I upped the temperature to 400° for another 15 minutes. I didn't have any trouble with burning.

They still seemed chewy to me and I was worried they wouldn't turn out, but they got nice and crunchy once they cooled.

Very tasty. I think I might use more bean curd next time, though.

[Kake]

This sounds brilliant, thank you for posting it. One question regarding the name — I know 南乳 is red fermented tofu, and 花生 is peanuts, but why is there a 肉 in the name?

[Chris Amirault]

No idea about that symbol, Kake. menuinprogress, that curd looks fine. Your jar may have lacked the red food coloring -- and included chili. That seems like a fine idea.