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blanch and skin the almonds first. This recipe is the food processor version. If you are using a
hand grinder, grind the nuts and add confectioners’ sugar. Blend the rest of the ingredients into
the nut-sugar mixture by hand.
Ingredients
1
6
¼
1
1
cup fresh whole almonds
tablespoons sugar
teaspoon salt
egg white
teaspoon almond extract
Procedure
. Toast almonds in 350°F (180°C) pre-heated oven until slightly brown and scented,
1
about 11 to 12 minutes. Process them with sugar and salt in a food processor until very fine,
about 2 minutes.
2. Combine egg white and almond extract in a small bowl and add to the almond mixture
through the feed tube while the machine is running. Continue processing another minute to reach
a homogeneous paste.
This is a highly concentrated almond paste that goes a long way. For a turnover or
similar pastry, for instance, you need only 2 tablespoons (1 ounce or 30 g) of this paste for each
pastry. Since the paste is thick and sticky, for easier spreading you may add a few drops of hot
water just before using it.
Makes 1¼ cups of paste. The shelflife, if refrigerated, is several months.
Seeds. Most people don’t even consider pumpkin and sunflower seeds edible unless they
are roasted and, true enough, their raw flavor is almost one-dimensional, flat, little oily and
almost bland. It is best to pop them in the oven just before using them because the fresh-roasted
flavor disappears in days. You can add both roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds to salads and
breakfast cereals. You can also use them as meat extenders and in many vegetarian dishes.
Cracking, chopping, grinding
If you buy unshelled nuts and the shells are very hard to crack, soak them in water for
several hours or overnight to soften them just a little. It won't affect the nut meat, the shell is
watertight.
Chopping a small amount of nuts without a food processor is quick on a large cutting
board with a good chef's knife and a good chopping technique.
It is best if you fine-grind nuts yourself and it is easy if you have a food processor. They
could end up as nut butter, though, if you over-process them, because of their high oil. Add ½
cup of flour or sugar for every cup of nuts (if the recipe calls for either) to prevent this. If neither
flour or sugar is part of your preparation, process the nuts by pulsing them few second at a time
and checking often.
Grinding seeds accentuates flavor. Middle Eastern cooks grind sesame seeds into a fine
paste to make tahini and halvah. Europeans also grind poppy seeds when using them in pastries,
giving them an altogether different, more intense flavor and distinct, soft texture. They use a
play © erdosh 289
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