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Stuffed Dates II
Remove stones from dates and fill cavities with Neufchâtel cheese.
Salted Almonds I Blanch one-fourth pound Jordan almonds and dry on a towel. Put one-third cup olive oil in a very small saucepan. When hot, put in one-fourth of the almonds and fry until delicately browned, stirring to keep almonds constantly in motion. Remove with a spoon or small skimmer, taking up as little oil as possible. Drain on brown paper and sprinkle with salt; repeat until all are fried. It may be necessary to remove some of the salt by wiping nuts with a napkin.
Two short items run together here: dates stuffed with fresh cheese, and almonds fried in oil rather than roasted dry. Both are simple, but several of the terms have shifted meaning since 1896.
- Neufchâtel, American styleThis is not the bloomy-rind French Neufchâtel but the domestic fresh cheese sold in the United States as a leaner cream cheese, roughly 20 percent milkfat. Any block-style cream cheese works; soften it to piping consistency and it will hold in the date cavity.
- Jordan almondsIn 1896 the term meant large, flat, sweet almonds from Málaga, not the pastel sugar-shelled confection. Use whole blanched almonds, choosing the largest you can find.
- BlanchingCover the almonds with boiling water for about a minute, drain, and slip the skins off between finger and thumb. Dry them thoroughly on a towel before they meet the oil or it will spatter.
- Oil temperatureA third of a cup of olive oil in a small pan gives only shallow depth, which may be why the almonds are fried a quarter at a time, as the recipe directs. The recipe says only "when hot"; moderate heat, in the region of 325–350F, suits them. Almonds go from pale gold to scorched quickly, and they continue to darken after they come out.
- Brown paperBrown paper was a common draining surface in period kitchens. Paper towels do the job, and salting while the nuts are still slick with oil helps the salt stick.
- SaltThe instruction to wipe the nuts with a napkin suggests the salting was expected to be heavy; with fine salt and a light hand it should not be needed.
- Yield and keepingA quarter pound of almonds fills a small dish and serves six to eight alongside drinks. Cooled completely, they keep about a week in a tight tin; the stuffed dates should be eaten the day they are made or refrigerated.
Both items belong to the late-Victorian dessert and sweetmeat course, where dried fruit, salted nuts and small confections were passed after dinner rather than served as a plated sweet. Salted almonds were a common feature of American dinner parties in this period, set in small dishes at each place. The stuffed date, filled with fresh cheese, nuts or marzipan, appears alongside the growing late-nineteenth-century trade in packed dates from the Middle East and North Africa.