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Salted Almonds
Blanch the almonds by throwing them into a bowl of boiling water a few minutes, then slip off the skins; to each pint of nuts, add one tbsp. of melted butter and a small tsp. salt; stir well and sprend the nuts in a shallow tin, in a cool oven, until the almonds are brown (twenty minutes); spread on a platter to cool.
A four-line recipe that works almost exactly as written, with two points worth attention: the pint measure and the vague oven.
- A pint of nutsThe recipe measures by volume, as period receipts often did. A pint of whole shelled almonds is roughly 10-11 oz (about 300 g), or 2 cups, enough for a small dish to pass round.
- "A cool oven"Period equivalents vary, but a cool oven is generally reckoned somewhere in the 250-300F range. At that temperature almonds will dry and pale-toast but rarely colour much in twenty minutes; around 325F for 18-22 minutes gives the browning the recipe asks for. Judge by colour and smell, not the clock.
- BlanchingBoiling water for a few minutes is more than needed and softens the nut. Thirty to sixty seconds in water off the boil loosens the skins, which then slip off under thumb pressure. Dry the nuts thoroughly before buttering or they will steam rather than toast.
- The hinge: stir themA single shallow layer in the tin, stirred once or twice during roasting, is what separates evenly browned almonds from a pan of scorched edges and raw centres. The margin between golden and burnt is short, so watch them.
- SaltA "small tsp." of the fine table salt of the day. If using kosher or flaky salt, use closer to a rounded teaspoon and add half of it after roasting, while the nuts are still buttery, so it clings.
- Cooling and keepingSpreading on a platter is not decoration: nuts left heaped in the hot tin keep cooking and turn soft. They crisp as they cool. Store airtight and eat them while fresh; buttered, salted nuts do not keep long.
Salted almonds belong to the era of the formal dinner table, where small dishes of them stood beside the celery and olives and were nibbled between courses, and to the afternoon reception, where they were passed with tea. To a cook of the 1900s a dressed nut was arguably of a piece with bonbons and candied peel, all of it "sweetmeats" in the older sense of the word. The recipe says nothing about blanching, and seems to assume you have done it before. Philathea cook books were compiled and sold by Philathea classes, the young women's Sunday-school groups of the period, and their contents run heavily to exactly this sort of contribution: cheap, reliable, and suited to feeding a crowd at a church social.