The Story Of The Stale Almonds!

Some people would ring me up for recipes or for tips to save grocery items from getting rotten, stale or spoilt.

Once such request came (a long time back) from a lady living in Anna Nagar, Chennai. She wanted me to advice her on how to use and what to make of 2 kgs of almonds sitting on her shelf.

2 kgs is a big quantity. Yet 4 or 5 items can be prepared to use up the lot.

I gave her the following suggestions:

1. Dry roast 250gms until crisp. Add a little salt and pepper powder while still warm to enhance taste. Wait until its thoroughly cool. Makes a good snack.

2. Soak a handful of almonds in warm water. De-skin and garnish her breakfast cereal with them.

3. Soak a handful of them in warm water, de-skin, add 1/2 cup of fresh coconut gratings, 1 red chilly, salt to taste. Grind them all into a course paste. Season with spluttered mustard seeds and curry leaves in hot oil. Good as chutney for Idly or Dosa.

4. Soak a handful of them, de-skin and grind to a paste. Boil and cool 250ml of milk. Add 2 teaspoons (or to taste) sugar, a pinch of cardomom powder, mix in the almond paste, refrigerate and a cool drink is ready to enjoy! That's almond thandai.

5. Dry roast and pound it with some red chillies, salt, asoefotida. Store in a clean, dry glass jar. Will stay fresh for 2 weeks. Can have with steamed rice. Good for health. That's almond spicy powder.

I went on with some more recipes on the phone like making a porridge/payasam or a thick gravy for some spicy curry, etc., etc.

All this while she was listening with rapt attention and in perfect silence. I had to ask whether she was still holding the line :D

She said she understood all I told her. Still she had one doubt.
The almonds were at least one year old (read stale)! Is there any way in which these could be revived, made alright, the smell removed, made fit to eat....?

I felt like a punctured tyre at that moment.

I told her there was no way we could make those almonds alright now except to junk them. The oil in the nuts would have turned bad. The taste would be so repulsive that some of us could suffer from food poisoning if we force ourselves to eat it, just because they are costly and we don't want to waste them. (That's when we remember to share it with someone!).

By this time I was laughing uncontrollably at the funny situation.
Anyway I could not put the phone down without giving her 2 more tips on how to save 2 kgs of fresh almonds from going bad, at least in the future :D

1) Pack them in a nice plastic pouch or ziplock bag and place them in the freezer. They will not spoil so fast as when they are left outside. I gave her another idea of splitting quantities into, say 200gms and storing in the freezer. When she needed them for a dish she could pull out just one pack and use it so that the other packs are not opened and re-sealed again!

2) If she could not use the entire quantity then she could share half of it with her relatives or friends when its still in good condition. Almonds are good anti-oxidants and such sharing will not only contribute towards good health but also create loads of goodwill! But this is the hardest part. Of parting with stuff which is still good. Its so easy to share when its spoilt or about to spoil. More on that subject sometime later!

Cheers!

Mahalakshmi