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Devilled Almonds
Ingredients.
Two ounces of Sweet Almonds.
Two ounces of Butter.
Seven or eight croûtons of fried Bread.
One tablespoonful of Chutney.
Two chopped pickled Gherkins.
One tablespoonful of Worcester Sauce.
The page gives quantities only; the method has not come down with it. What follows is what a cook needs to read between the lines, since the proportions themselves tell you most of what happens.
- No method is givenThis entry is an ingredients list only. The proportions suggest the usual pattern for such a dish: blanched almonds fried in butter, tossed with a sharp "devil" mixture, piled onto fried bread. If you want a worked procedure, take it from a current recipe and use these quantities as the guide.
- The proportions in modern termsTwo ounces of almonds is about 55 g, or a little under half a cup of whole nuts. Two ounces of butter is 55 g, or 4 tablespoons — generous for so few nuts, which suggests the butter also dresses the croûtons.
- Sweet almondsAn old trade distinction from bitter almonds, which were sold for flavouring and are unsafe in quantity. "Sweet almonds" simply means ordinary eating almonds; buy them blanched and skinned to save a step.
- CroûtonsNot the small cubes sold for salads. Here a croûton is a shaped piece of bread — a round or finger — fried in butter until crisp and drained. Seven or eight of them set the scale of the dish.
- ChutneyMost likely a sweet, thick mango-style chutney rather than a fresh coriander or mint chutney. Chop any large pieces of fruit small so the tablespoonful coats the nuts evenly.
- Worcester SauceThe British name for what is labelled Worcestershire sauce today; the same product. With the chutney and gherkins it supplies all the salt this dish needs, so hold back on seasoning until you have tasted.
- Almonds burn quicklyThe hinge of the dish. In hot butter almonds go from pale to bitter in under a minute once they begin to colour, and they carry on cooking off the heat. Take them out at light gold and add the chutney and sauce away from the flame.
- Yield and serviceSeven or eight croûtons, so three to four people at a savoury course, or eight single bites passed with drinks. It must go to the table hot and crisp; made in advance the bread softens and the point is lost.
Devilled almonds belong to the savoury, the small hot salty course served after the sweet at late Victorian and Edwardian dinners and intended to finish the wine rather than the appetite. "Devilling" had by then settled into a fixed idea — anything hot, sharp and highly seasoned, usually involving mustard, cayenne, or bottled sauce — and its application to a handful of fried nuts on toast is a compact example of how thoroughly Anglo-Indian condiments had entered the British store cupboard. Mango chutney and Worcestershire sauce, both shop-bought here, do the work that a cook a generation earlier would have done with cayenne and mustard from the spice drawer.