Vietnamese Roasted Cashews

Someone I know first introduced these cashews to me a number of years ago, after she had bought some packets of these back from a trip to Vietnam... they are processed in an interesting way, roasted with the skin on, and are sold to you as such. I'm not sure if the skin is what makes the difference, but these cashews have a much more fragrant taste than almost all of the commercial cashew nuts I've tried, from American to European to local brands, whether salted or not.

Perhaps it allows them to be roasted for longer without getting burnt, resulting in the sugars being slightly more caramelised? My impression is that these cashews are a slightly deeper, more saturated and almost orange yellow, as you can see in the image below, than most other cashews I've tried, which tend to look slightly paler.

These are also crunchier than other commercial cashew nuts that I've tried. I'm not sure if it is related to the way they are processed, or whether it's just that we're getting them fresher since they may have been purchased further up the production chain in Vietnam. 

You can eat them with the skin on... at least, I've done so and not gotten any stomach aches from doing so. Since they're lightly salted as they are roasted, eating them with the skin on also makes it saltier to the palate.

They were purchased from wholesalers for S$14/kg at some market in Vietnam, and packed into these silver bags, which are used for the other products sold at stall, like coffee, pistachios, dried fruit and dried seafood.

The good news is that recently, I've found Warehouse Club, Singapore selling these cashews too, at just $2/kg more than the Vietnam price. Granted, the Vietnam price was probably a "tourist" price... but I guess there's no avoiding it unless you want to risk the Vietnamese stall owners sabotaging your product out of spite. The image below shows the product from Warehouse Club, which I've purchased. I haven't yet opened it to try though, so I'm not sure if they are of the same quality as the ones acquired directly from Vietnam. I guess I should open the packet soon... 1kg is a LOT of nuts to consume before the expiry date... (^^);