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Salted Peanuts
Purchase raw peanuts. Shell and blanch by covering with cold water and bringing to boiling point. Dry for at least an hour on paper towelling or clean cloths. Cover the bottom of a frying basket with the peanuts and immerse in deep Mazola hot enough to brown a bit of bread in one minute, 350 degrees F. Fry a pale brown, drain on crumpled paper and dust with salt.
A deep-fried rather than oven-roasted peanut, and the method still works exactly as written. A few notes on the vintage wording and on the margins for error.
- Mazola is corn oilMazola was and is a corn oil brand, and the recipe is simply specifying a neutral oil with a high smoke point. Any refined peanut, corn, or safflower oil behaves the same way at 350F.
- The bread test and the thermometer"Hot enough to brown a bit of bread in one minute" was the standard home gauge before thermometers were common, and the recipe helpfully gives the equivalent: 350F. Use the thermometer; the bread test drifts by several degrees depending on the bread.
- Blanching means loosening the skinsHere it is the cold-water-to-boil method, not a long cook. Bring to the boil, drain at once, and the red skins slip off between finger and thumb. Rubbing the drained nuts in a rough towel takes off most of them.
- Drying is not optionalAn hour on towelling is the minimum, and it matters. Damp nuts will spit violently in 350F oil and will steam rather than crisp.
- Fry a pale brown, and mean itPeanuts carry over considerably after they leave the oil, darkening a shade or two on the draining paper. Pull them when they look underdone; a nut that looks right in the basket comes out bitter.
- Salt while hotThe residual film of oil is what makes salt cling. Dust the moment they hit the paper, tossing so the coating is even; salt applied to cooled nuts falls straight to the bottom of the bowl.
- Yield and keepingThe recipe gives no quantities. A pound of raw shelled peanuts is roughly three cups, and the fried weight ends up close to the starting weight, moisture lost being partly offset by oil taken up. Cool completely before storing, or trapped steam will soften them; airtight, they should hold their crispness for a week or two.
Frying peanuts in deep fat rather than roasting them dry was a commercial and confectioner's practice that also appears in home cookbooks of the period. The recipe's naming of Mazola by brand is a period marker in itself: corn oil was then a comparatively new product, promoted as a modern alternative to lard and drippings.