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Salted Peanuts
To one-half pound of shelled peanuts, allow two tablespoons of Larkin Olive Oil. Less Olive Oil is needed for peanuts than for almonds because the volatile oil of the peanuts is freer than the oil of the almonds. Method of browning is the same as for the almonds.
A fragment that depends on a neighbouring recipe: the browning method is the one given for salted almonds, which means oven-roasting in oil rather than frying. Everything here is easy to reconstruct.
- The missing methodThe book's own directions sit in the almond recipe and are not reproduced here. As a modern reconstruction: toss the nuts with the oil until every one is coated, spread them in a single layer in a shallow pan, and roast at 325-350F, stirring every five minutes so the ones at the edges do not scorch. Fifteen to twenty minutes should bring raw shelled peanuts to an even gold.
- Two tablespoons is generousHalf a pound of peanuts needs no more than a tablespoon of oil to coat well; two leaves a slick that has to be drained off on paper. The original's reasoning about "volatile oil" is not chemistry a modern cook needs to worry about, but the practical conclusion is right: peanuts want less added fat than almonds.
- SkinsRedskin peanuts will shed papery flakes in the pan that burn and taste bitter. Rub the skins off in a towel before oiling, or buy blanched raw peanuts.
- Salt while hotThe recipe's title is the only place salt appears. Sprinkle fine salt over the nuts the moment they leave the oven, while the oil is still fluid enough to hold it; salt added after they cool slides straight to the bottom of the dish.
- Judging donenessPull them a shade lighter than you want. Peanuts carry enough residual heat to keep browning in the pan for several minutes, and the inside darkens after the outside looks done.
- Larkin Olive OilA house-brand product of the company that issued this book. Any mild olive oil works; a strongly peppery extra-virgin will dominate the peanuts.
- Yield and keepingHalf a pound makes roughly a cup and a half, enough for eight to ten people as a table nut. Cool completely before storing airtight, or trapped steam turns them leathery within a day.
Salted nuts belonged to the formal table rather than the snack bowl in the early 1900s: small dishes of salted almonds, pecans or peanuts were set out along a dinner table to be nibbled between courses. The peanut itself was still climbing in respectability, having moved through the nineteenth century from livestock feed and circus fare toward the parlour, helped along by the roasting and grinding trades that produced commercial peanut butter in the same decades. The named "Larkin Olive Oil" marks the book's origin as a premium publication: the Larkin Company of Buffalo built its business selling soap and then groceries direct to households through club plans, and its cookbooks worked as catalogues, specifying company products by name wherever an ordinary recipe would simply say olive oil.