Pan-toasting brings out the wonderful flavors and aromas in spices, seeds and nuts: it transforms them from everyday ingredients into something almost ethereal, adding extra dimensions of flavor to dishes from many cuisines from around the world. We’ve pan-toasted these sorts of small ingredients for years. But pan-toasting like this requires a lot of shaking - to assure all-over/even toasting and to avoid burning the ingredients. And using a typical small open saute or fry pan will allow the ingredients to fly around and often escape out of your pan.
A few years ago we were in NY visiting dear friends. They couldn’t wait to show us a great find: a small round pan with a snap-in mesh lid that you use to toast spices, seeds and nuts. They were even so wonderfully generous as to send us one for our kitchen. We loved it! The pan heated quickly to toast the spices in no time and the wonderful mesh lid solved the problem of escaping seeds and spices.
Fade out, fade in …one of our favorite vendors, RSVP, offers an updated version of our friends’ earlier pan, but in beautiful stainless steel, with a nicely lockable mesh lid. We couldn’t wait to try it ...and we weren’t disappointed!
