## That may look disgusting, but hell if it isn't delicious.
If you keep up with my other posts on Steemit, then it won't surprise you to find out my phone is absolutely filled with pictures of mushrooms. Some are beautiful, many are old and decomposing. **It speaks volumes about how these peanuts look that it took multiple tries to distinguish them from the rotting mushrooms in my photo album.**
#### But don't let the "Swamp Thing" look trick you - boiled peanuts are fucking amazing
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## How (Why?) do you boil a peanut?!
The obvious part is that they are boiled in a pot of water. What I didn't know is that the boiling liquid isn't just plain water but a kind of brine. **The boiling liquid is imbued with salt, but also a potentially wide variety of spices and/or hot peppers or even sugar depending on the recipe being used.**
I bought mine from a nice guy out near Harper's Ferry federal park and he seems to have used a plain salt brine. **But even just just a plain salt brine alone created one of my favorite new treats.**
#### Boiling peanuts turns them into something completely unexpected
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## You've probably heard that a peanut is not a nut, but actually a legume
This has always seemed, to me, to be a distinction without a difference. My experience with peanuts was previously limited to eating them whole and roasted or in peanut butter form. The "legume" title had no significance.
However, once you boil a peanut, suddenly the peanut's relationship to other legumes becomes abundantly clear. **The crunch of a conventional peanut is replaced with a melt in your mouth softness more akin to a bean or a firm pea.**
The flavor, meanwhile, changes completely! **If I fed you a shelled, skinned boiled peanut, hot and fresh from the pot, you might be hardpressed to understand what you were tasting.** Most of the conventional peanut flavor is gone, replaced by a funky, salty, earthy, almost beany flavor that is positively delicious, with just hints of peanut flavor here and there.
#### The texture is just as enjoyable
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## Melt in your mouth is not hyperbole
You can basically dissolve a boiled peanut between your tongue and the roof of your mouth, which is a texture that makes *zero* intuitive sense if you're a fan of conventionally prepared peanuts.
Although boiled peanuts are considered a streetside, simple southern snack food, **in my opinion the boiling process elevates the lowly peanut to new culinary heights.** Sure, you need to overcome some sensory weirdness, what with the dark discolored shells and pungent odor. But the actual experience of eating the peanuts is divine.
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## The question now is how can you make them at home?
There are [a lot](https://spicysouthernkitchen.com/crock-pot-spicy-boiled-peanuts/) of simple [recipes online](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/boiled-peanuts-51156810/amp). Most either use a stock pot or crock pot, and the brine creation and boiling are both super simple.
The bigger issue is what kind of peanut to use. **You definitely can't use roasted peanuts, even if they're in the shell.**
What you *can* use are Raw peanuts in their shells, which are fairly readily available in most supermarkets.
**But what you really want to use are green peanuts - that is peanuts freshly harvested from the earth. Apparently boiled [green peanuts](http://www.boiled-peanut-world.com/green-peanuts.html) are the height of peanut boiling ecstacy.**
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#### I'm not sure whether the peanuts I had were green or just raw. Either way they were a culinary revelation I plan on recreating at home. If you've never tried them before I suggest you rectify that deficiency ASAP.
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Pictures are my own
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### [Take a look at my other content for more than you care to know about mushrooms, video games and a host of other topics](http://steemit.com/@dber)
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