hi there I'm chef Eric Crowley owner of
the culinary classroom in West Los
Angeles and today I'm going to show you
how to fry almonds there are a lot of
applications for almonds to be fried one
of the more common ones is a classic
Spanish sauce like romesco you may find
some other applications where you want
to fry up some almonds and take them
after they've been fried and coat them
up in some salt and some pepper or some
spices in order to make like a little
snack mix for a PHA or something like
that frying up the almonds for this
particular preparation I'm going to
utilize some blanched almonds and I'm
also going to need a pan that has a lot
of paper towels on it in order to absorb
the oil after the almonds come out nice
heavy pan like this cast-iron skillet
and I'm only going to need two maybe
three tablespoons olive oil I usually
like to use a pure olive oil as opposed
to an extra virgin an extra virgin olive
oil is going to wind up they can't get
hot enough it's what we have has what we
call a low smoke point to it pure olive
oil is going to be a little bit more
ideal also I was always taught one of
the disadvantages to frying something
like this in extra-virgin olive oil is
that as it starts to get really hot all
the subtle flavors and nuances that an
extra virgin olive oil has basically
just dissipate so pure olive oil wind up
working fine I'm gonna go ahead and let
this get hot but not until it not so hot
that it starts to smoke if it starts to
smoke go ahead and take the pan off the
heat or you can even start to lower your
flame blanched almonds you can see a
video for this elsewhere our almonds
that have the skin taken off make sure
that they're dry if they're still really
wet then when you get them into the oil
they're going to spatter so you want to
keep in mind keep in mind if they do
have a little bit of dampness to them
and to determine if our oil is hot
enough I can actually just take an
almond and drop it into the oil notice
that the way that it starts to sizzle
when the sizzles right away we're gonna
go ahead and take the rest of our
almonds and just pour them right in
a little bit of water on them that's
absolutely fine stir them around get
them out into a single layer make sure
that you maintain a nice little bubbling
if the bubbling really starts to
increase in speed and rapidity it starts
to sound really violent you can go ahead
and lower your heat just a little bit
and you can also stir them around that's
going to help cool it off a little bit
and allow the almonds to take just a
little bit more time to fry up you can
already see that some of these almonds
as I start to stir them around are
starting to get a little bit of golden
brown on one side here we go flip that
guy right on right over there got a
little bit of golden going on that's
absolutely wonderful and what the frying
is going to do is bring out the natural
oil in the almond it's also going to
toast it up a little bit on the inside
to help give the almond a real a little
bit of a crispy texture it's also going
to give it that more that toasted or
roasted flavor to it as opposed to just
having a raw almond this is very common
in a classic sauce like romesco sauce in
Spain almonds are really essential and a
lot of recipes in in sauces are crusted
on the outside of steaks it's going to
give your item a little bit of a crunch
and of course you're going to have the
nice nutritional benefit that the
almonds have so very very quickly you
can see the almonds start to get a nice
golden brown gonna take the pan off the
heat and tilt the pan a little bit so I
can start to get the almonds away from
the oil lift them on up with a spoon
even let them drain a little bit more
out of the spoon if you have a slotted
spoon that'll work out really well too
and then spread them out onto some paper
toweling okay you'll also notice that
the almonds are going to start to darken
a little bit more as they come out of
the oil keep an eye out for some almonds
like this little half right here it's
probably fried up a little bit too much
once it gets that dark you're going to
really notice a distinct bitterness to
the almond so that one will wind up
discarding before we use it in an
application like a romesco sauce and
that one as well now you have some nice
toasted fried almonds this particular
preparation you can make way ahead of
time this'll these guys after you've
cooled them off panel drive with some
paper toweling you can get them into a
airtight container like a Tupperware or
something like that and they'll keep in
your pantry for about a week or so
they'll keep them much longer in a
ziplock bag in the freezer or in the
refrigerator in an airtight container in
the freezer about six months in the
refrigerator say about four weeks or so
if you can keep your hands off of them
even like this they're really wonderful
while they're still pretty hot and they
are if you wanted to use them as a snack
you can sprinkle a little bit of salt
sprinkle a little bit of pepper on them
remove these guys and we'll discard
those and that is how you fry almonds
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and I'll see you soon