Hickory Nut Update

Georgia made a batch of brownie bites rolled in the meats from Hickory nuts that I have been furiously shelling for the past week of so:

We also had them on French toast this morning. They're really good! But shelling the nuts is a lot of work, and I occasionally miss a piece of shell, so you have to eat them like a Maryland crab cake. I don't know if we'll repeat this experiment in the future.

Old Hickory Update

About a month and half ago I posted about a huge crop of wild hickory nuts I had picked up on the road side and set aside for later use. The internet seemed to agree the nuts should be air dried for at least a month before attempting to shell and use them. Well, we cheated a little and roasted a couple dozen (350 F for 20 min), and I shelled those. We sprinkled those on ice cream and they were actually pretty good, except for all the little bits of shell that snuck by. But, being from Southern Maryland, we're accustomed to eating around the shells in our crab cakes. Anyway, the month passed, and then some, and Georgia got on me to do something with the two pans of hickory nuts drying in the basement. I got out the vice grip (the best way I've found to crack them), and the dental pick and set to work.

It took a few dozen nuts, and a lot of hand strength and patience, and I can't really tell if the drying process helped shelling them much, but I managed to get about a pint cup of shelled nut meat. While I was doing it, Georgia was making a batch of Christmas cookies that are rolled in walnuts, and we took one of them and rolled it in the Hickory nuts and cooked it. It was pretty good, and different than walnuts.

Now I just have to make brownies with them.

Reminds Me of Wild Hickory Nuts

Because they are wild hickory nuts.

This year, the oaks and hickories are going crazy, and producing bumper crops, apparently it's another mast year. We (well mostly Georgia), have been removing buckets of acorns from our driveway.  A few places along my walk to the beach with Skye are overhung by large Hickory trees which also are producing tremendous amounts of fruit:

A hickory nut still in the husk

I'm not sure, but I think most of our hickories are Mockernut Hickories. The fruits are similar to walnut or black walnut or even a pecan (Pecans are really a type of hickory), and have a thick husk, which splits into 5 4 parts, and releases the nut. In one place along the walk you can just pick up the nuts laying along the street, both in and out of the husks in huge numbers:

One pocket's worth of nuts, washed, and with the floaters (bad nuts) removed.

The nuts themselves are incredibly thick shelled and hard, and are very difficult to crack. I bent a traditional nut cracker trying, checked on line, and found people using special home made nut crackers, or hammers. A little experimentation showed than an ordinary vice-grip does a satisfactory job:

A cracked hickory nut

The shell is very intricate inside, and the nut meat is not especially easy to extract whole. The meat  looks, and tastes very much like walnut, although it has a stronger taste, and a hint of vanilla.  Instructions are to dry them for a month before cracking them; I hope that will help the meat shrink away from the shell and make it easier to extract.

The meat extracted from one nut

I have quite a pile of nuts drying in the basement. In a month, I'll get serious about it, and try to extract at least enough meat to make a batch of brownies with.

Wait for it:

No, Euell Gibbons, Grape Nuts don't taste like wild Hickory nuts. 

So That's How They Do It!

H/T Maggie's Farm.