A lot of gluten free and Paleo receipes use almond flour. It is perfect for baking, thickening sauces or as a replacement for bread crumbs to crust fish or chicken. In some parts of the world it is easy enough to buy ready made almond flour (also known as almond meal) but in India it isn’t. Fortunately, it is easy enough to make at home. Here is how:
Ingredients:
- Bag of raw almonds
Preparation:
- Blanch the almonds by putting them in boiling water for about 1 minute
- Rinse with cold water and squeeze the almonds out of their shriveled skin. This is a bit time-consuming so rope in an extra pair of hands if you can to get the job done faster
- Spread the nuts out on a kitchen towel and allow to dry for a few hours
- In batches (I do about 1 cup at a time) process the almonds in a small food processor (I use the chutney jar of my Indian food processor) by pulsing until you have a fine flour. Be careful not to over-process as it will turn into almond butter
- There will be some bigger pieces that you want to separate by running the flour through a sieve
- Keep aside the bigger pieces so that you can process those once more later
- Keep doing this until all the almonds have been processed into a fine flour
- At the end you will have a little bit of the slightly more coarse flour left which you can keep aside to use as crumbs in crusting fish or chicken or to make a “cheese” cake crust
Some recipes that use almond flour:
Chocolate Chip Almonds Muffins
And for those Paleo folks that want to enjoy an occasional piece of bread, here is a link to my favorite Paleo Bread recipe: http://elanaspantry.com/paleo-bread/
Enjoy!
Monique
