Home › Dried Fruits and Nuts › Dried Fruits and Nuts: Salted
Dried Fruits and Nuts: Salted
Salted Almonds 1 cup Jordan almonds 1/2 cup olive or cooking oil Salt Cover almonds with boiling water, let stand two minutes, drain, cover with cold water, again drain, and remove brown skins. Dry on a towel. Heat oil in very small frying pan; when hot, put in enough almonds to cover bottom of pan, and stir until delicately browned. Remove with spoon or small skimmer, taking up as little oil as possible. Drain on brown paper, and sprinkle with salt. Repeat, until all are fried. Cottonseed oil, peanut oil, or half lard and half clarified butter may be used instead of olive oil.
A straightforward blanch-and-fry method that still beats oven-roasting for texture, provided the oil stays moderate and the salt goes on while the nuts are hot.
- "Jordan almonds" are not the candyIn this period the term means large, flat, sweet almonds of the Spanish Jordan type sold raw and in the shell or shelled, not the sugar-panned confection sold under that name now. Any large raw whole almond works; buy them raw rather than pre-roasted.
- Oil temperatureThe book says only "when hot" and gives no figure. Moderate heat is what is wanted: too hot and the outsides colour before the interiors dry out, and the nuts taste scorched rather than toasted.
- Watch the colour, not the clockAlmonds carry on browning off the heat. Pull them at a shade lighter than you want, since the residual oil keeps cooking them on the paper.
- Small batches are the pointA single layer covering the bottom of a small pan keeps the oil from dropping in temperature. Crowding gives pale, greasy nuts; expect three or four batches from a cup.
- Salt while hotSalt adheres best to the hot film of oil. Sprinkle as each batch comes out, then toss; salting fully cooled nuts leaves much of it in the bottom of the dish.
- Draining surface"Brown paper" is grocery-bag kraft paper. Paper towels do the same job.
- Fat substitutionsCottonseed oil was the cheap neutral frying fat of the era and is now uncommon at retail; peanut, grapeseed or refined sunflower oil behaves the same way. The half-lard, half-clarified-butter option gives the richest flavour but browns faster, so drop the heat slightly.
- Yield and keepingOne cup of almonds serves six to eight as a nibble. Cool completely before storing airtight, or trapped steam will soften them; they keep about a week at room temperature and longer refrigerated.
Salted almonds belong to the formal dinner table of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which is why they turn up under a heading for dried fruits and nuts rather than among the savouries. The Jordan almond of the period was a prized import graded for size and flatness; the name is generally traced to the Old French and Middle English jardin, "garden" — the jardyne almaund — with the river being a later folk association, and it referred to the nut itself long before it referred to the sugar-coated version. The blanching step reflects a taste for pale, uniform nuts, and the list of alternative fats is a piece of household economy: olive oil was expensive and variable in American markets, while cottonseed oil and lard were cheap and plentiful, though cottonseed oil drew complaints for its use in adulterating olive oil.