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Salted Almonds
Blanch almonds by putting into boiling water for a few minutes. Remove skins, dry well and brown in heated olive oil or butter on top of stove or in oven. Take from fire when very light brown, as they continue to color after removing from pan. Drain well on brown paper and sprinkle with salt.
A straightforward method that still works; the only real difficulty is judging when to stop, since the nuts keep cooking off the heat.
- Pull them earlyThe hinge of the recipe is the carryover browning. Almonds taken out at pale gold will finish at a proper toasted tan on the draining paper; anything that already looks done in the pan will be bitter by the time it cools.
- BlanchingA few minutes is generous. Thirty to sixty seconds in boiling water is enough to loosen the skins, which then slip off under thumb pressure. Longer soaking waterlogs the nuts and makes the later drying slower.
- Dry well means dryDamp almonds spit violently in hot oil and steam rather than fry. Spread them on a towel and leave them until the surfaces are matte, or give them ten minutes in a low oven first.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives none. For the oven method, 325-350F with the nuts tossed in just enough oil to coat, stirred every five minutes, takes roughly 12-15 minutes. On the stove use a wide pan over medium heat and keep them moving.
- Olive oil in 1900Olive oil and butter -- The olive oil sold for cooking at this period was not necessarily the assertive extra-virgin of today, so a milder oil or clarified butter may be closer to the intent. The recipe does offer plain butter, but it browns quickly and needs close watching at this temperature.
- Brown paperA grocer's bag or plain kraft paper was the standard drain. Paper towel does the same job. Salt while the nuts are still oily and hot, or it will not stick.
- SaltFine salt clings; coarse crystals mostly fall to the bottom of the dish. About half a teaspoon of fine salt per cup of almonds is a reasonable starting point.
- Yield and keepingKeeping -- Cool completely before storing, or trapped steam will soften them; airtight at room temperature they hold their crispness about a week.
Salted almonds belong to the tradition of the dessert course and the dinner table rather than to candy-making proper, though cookbooks of this period often filed them under confectionery, where the other nut recipes sat. Small dishes of salted nuts set at each place were a familiar feature of formal American dining around the turn of the century, and almonds were a common choice; supplies came from Mediterranean growers and, increasingly, from California. Frying in oil or butter, as here, gives a noticeably richer nut than the dry-roasting most modern recipes use.