Walkers Sensations Californian Honey & Salt Oven Roasted Peanuts

Another packet of ostentatiously oven roasted peanuts. Just how are old style (you know, what we grew up with) nuts cooked? Tossed in a giant frying pan or something?

Here's a recipe explaining how to make salted peanuts at home. I never thought about soaking the nuts in brine but now I know. There are also recipes that explain how to do it without the oil, but where's the joy in that?

I wonder. Do you suppose that products labelled oven baked are cooked without oil, but those labelled oven roasted are cooked with oil while still managing to sound a little bit healthy. What do you think? There is certainly oil involved in this recipe, but perhaps there is no difference between baked and roast.

One of my cousins makes a really tasty Christmas Day treat of fresh almonds fried in butter and sprinkled with salt. It's really good. Hot buttery saltiness makes almonds so easy to eat with a glass of fizz. And I don't really like almonds much. I guess you could try this with other nuts too.

Anyway, these peanuts are a lot more complicated than ordinary salted peanuts, and thus, I daresay, even less good for you. Look at all the honey and salt, and the second ingredient after peanuts is sugar. No real surprise there, but remember to restrict your intake because they won't do your diet any good.

They do taste good. And I think the sweet/saltiness works very well.

But both the Chef and I thought the nuts are rather harder than we were expecting. I don't know why they should be quite so hard.