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Pistachio Kernels, Burnt
Blanch and peel a quarter of a pound of freshly-imported pistachio kernels, and put them in a gentle oven until they are quite dry and hot through. Put half a pound of loaf sugar into a saucepan with just enough water to dissolve it, and add a few drops of vanilla flavouring and of spinach-juice. Let the sugar boil until it is nearly, but not quite, brittle; then take the saucepan from the fire, throw in the pistachios, and stir them about in the sugar until they are well covered with it, taking care that the sugar does not stick to the sides of the pan. Turn all out of the pan, and lay the kernels on a sieve; cover them over, and leave them for a few minutes. Pick the sugar from them, put it again into the pan with enough water to dissolve it, and boil again until it reaches the same point as before. Throw in the kernels, stir them about, and when they are once more covered take them out; repeat the operation a third time, until the kernels are twice their original size, when they are ready for use. If required, a few more drops of spinach colouring may be put in the last time of boiling. Time, about an hour. Probable cost, pistachios, 4s. per pound.
This is a hand-made dragée: nuts built up in successive coats of hard-boiled sugar, in the manner of French pralines. The whole thing turns on the sugar temperature, and on stirring the nuts off the heat so the syrup grains rather than sets glassy.
- "Nearly, but not quite, brittle"Brittle is the hard-crack stage, 300-310F (149-154C). You want to stop just short, at about 270-285F (132-140C), the soft-crack stage. A thermometer removes all guesswork; the older cold-water test gives threads that bend slightly before snapping.
- Why the sugar grainsTaking the pan off the fire and stirring the nuts about is what can turn the clear syrup opaque and sandy so that it clings to the nuts. The recipe says only "stir them about" and does not say how vigorously; stir until the coating dulls and the nuts separate.
- Loaf sugarCone or loaf sugar was highly refined white sugar broken from a hardened block. Ordinary granulated sugar is the usual modern substitute; half a pound is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons, or 225 g.
- Spinach-juiceSpinach greening was the standard Victorian green colour: leaves pounded, the juice pressed out and gently heated so the colour coagulates and can be skimmed off. A few drops of modern green food colouring do the same job with less trouble, and neither adds flavour at this quantity.
- A gentle ovenProbably somewhere in the region of 250-275F (120-135C) for the drying stage, though the book gives no temperatures and any equivalence is approximate. The nuts need to be dry and hot when they meet the syrup, or the coating cools too fast and slides off.
- "Freshly-imported" pistachiosThe point is rancidity. Shelled pistachios carry a lot of oil and turn stale quickly; buy from a shop with turnover and taste one before committing. Blanching is a 30-second dip in boiling water, after which the skins rub off in a cloth.
- Three coats, and the reclaimed sugarSugar that falls away is scraped from the sieve, redissolved and reboiled to the same point. Expect to lose some to the pan each round; a little extra sugar and water on the second and third boils is not cheating.
- Yield and keepingSome sugar is always lost to the pan, so the finished weight falls short of the 4 oz of kernels plus 8 oz of sugar you begin with. Cool completely on the sieve and store airtight; damp air softens the coating within a day or two.
- The price note4s. per pound was a serious sum when Cassell's was compiled, several days' wages for a domestic servant. This was a recipe for a household with a confectionery habit, not an everyday sweet.
"Burnt" nuts, in nineteenth-century English confectionery, has nothing to do with scorching: it renders the French pralines, nuts rolled repeatedly in boiled sugar until they wear a thick sandy jacket, a technique generally traced to French court confectioners of the seventeenth century. Almonds were the usual subject; pistachios, imported from the Levant and Sicily and priced accordingly, marked the version out as a luxury, and spinach juice reinforced the green. Sugar-boiling was taught as a graded skill, thread through ball to crack, and a cook who could judge "nearly, but not quite, brittle" by eye could also make caramels, nougat and spun sugar. Vegetable colourings like spinach green, cochineal red and saffron yellow were the household palette before coal-tar dyes displaced them.