Video details how to prepare Piñon Brittle. Video created by Liddie Martinez
Española Valley
Piñon picking in northern New Mexico is still a time-honored family tradition. Three or four generations of grandmas, uncles, aunts and cousins gather up a picnic lunch, a big thermos of coffee, a cooler with water and sodas, plenty of empty cans in various sizes and hit the road early to claim a good spot.
In my childhood, my uncles would go out scouting the week before to find the right area for harvesting the precious tiny nuts my mom, aunts and grandma needed to make our traditional mincemeat empanaditas for the holidays and to have some on hand to roast and share with our families throughout the year. If it was a year of good harvest, we could come home after a weekend of picking with a 25-pound flour sack filled to the top, other thinner years yielded maybe a 5-pound coffee can full, but somehow, we always managed to have enough to share with everyone.
I remember being sent off with a small, empty Vienna sausage can to find my tree where I would sit beneath it and squander my time staring at the patterns the branches made against the sky or identifying all the different birds visiting the trees, and always eating more piñon than made it into my can. There was always a contest in play among the cousins, to see who could pick the most piñon, but I never tried to win. I spent all my time counting birds.
In those days piñon trees were abundant and there was enough snowpack and rainfall to insure a good crop. Because piñon was a squat, slow growing tree that provided us with food, it was rarely cut down, it was an unwritten rule among the villages. A family might burn piñon wood on Christmas Eve but even that was not common; it was considered too extravagant and wasteful for anyone to have a cord of it or to sell it in any quantity.
On occasion, my mother, who loved to make candy, would make a batch of brittle using piñon instead of peanuts. We would watch from a safe distance as she boiled the sugar, added sprinkles of this and that to her pot and checked her candy thermometer until the hard crack stage was reached- to me it seemed like magic- it still does. Enjoy a delicious nutty and buttery treat but please remember to keep small children and pets out of harm’s way.
Piñon Brittle
2 cups shelled piñon nuts
1 ¼ cups sugar
1/3 cup corn syrup
1/3 cup water
½ cup butter, room temp
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon vanilla
- Toast the nuts in a cast iron skillet until light golden, 3 to 5 minutes, stirring constantly so they toast evenly and let them cool to room temperature.
- Put the sugar in a heavy saucepan. Add the corn syrup and water stir once to mix and bring to a boil over medium heat. Continue boiling (do not stir), until a layer of bubbles forms on top, 3 to 4 minutes. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and continue to boil undisturbed for 5 more minutes. I place a wooden spoon on top of the foil to keep in place.
- Remove the foil, add the butter, gently stir with a wooden spoon a few times. When the butter has melted and is combined with the mixture, add your candy thermometer continue cooking over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until a candy thermometer reads 300 degrees (150 C), about 10 – 12 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare sheet pan with nonstick cooking spray.
- As soon as the sugar mixture reaches the desired temperature, immediately but carefully stir in the salt, baking soda, vanilla and piñon nuts.
- Using a buttered spatula, spread the nut mixture as thinly and evenly as possible over the prepared pan. Leave the brittle to cool to room temperature. Work quickly, the brittle will harden very quickly.
- When the brittle is completely cooled and hardened, break it into irregular pieces. Store in airtight containers.
Editor’s note: Liddie Martinez is the author of the Chile Line Cookbook: Historic Recipes of Northern New Mexico, which is available online at www.pajaritopress.com.
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Liddie's Traditional New Mexican Dishes: Piñon Brittle - Los Alamos Daily Post
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