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To Blanch Pistachio Nuts
Drop the nuts into hot water containing a little baking soda; allow the water just to boil, strain, and remove the skins.
A working technique rather than a dish: the alkaline water loosens the papery skin so the bright green kernel underneath can be used for garnish. The whole point is colour, so speed matters more than anything else.
- The hinge: barely boilAs soon as the water reaches a boil, take it off. A minute or two more and the nuts turn soft, dull and olive-drab instead of green. The soda is there to loosen the skin, not to cook the nut.
- How much sodaThe original says only "a little." Something on the order of 1/2 teaspoon baking soda to a cup of water is a reasonable reading; a heavier hand risks a soapy taste, and does not obviously speed the skins off.
- Cold water after strainingNot stated in the original, but tip the strained nuts straight into cold water. It stops the residual heat, rinses off the soda, and makes the skins slip more easily.
- Getting the skins offRub the nuts between the folds of a rough towel, or between your palms, then pick out the kernels. Do it while they are still damp; dried skins cling.
- Dry before useSpread the blanched kernels on a towel or a low tray and let them dry off before chopping, or they will smear rather than cut. Do not put them in a warm oven to hurry it, which browns them.
- Use raw, unsalted nutsThis only works on plain raw pistachios out of the shell. Roasted or salted supermarket pistachios have already lost the colour you are blanching for.
- QuantityThe original gives no amount. Skins weigh very little, so a cup of shelled raw nuts comes out at roughly a cup blanched -- enough to garnish a mould, an ice or a cake.
Marion Harris Neil's casserole book belongs to the moment when the covered earthenware dish was being sold to American households as a labour-saving novelty, and the miscellaneous chapters at the back carry the small preparatory tricks a cook of the period was expected to have at hand. Blanched pistachios were one of them: imported, expensive, and valued largely for their green colour. They appear scattered through period cookbooks in nougat, in pistachio ice cream, in bavarian creams and as chopped garnish over iced cakes. Soda in the blanching water is an old trick for loosening stubborn nut skins, and versions of it are still in use.