Acorns or hazelnuts are an excellent source of food and previously provided many recipe ideas. Nowadays, they're making a comeback as food, and with good reason, because they're packed with vitamin B, lean fat, and protein, and they're a decent source of complex carbohydrates. Acorns are also indicated for controlling blood sugar levels. However, if you want to get the maximum benefit from them, you will have to seek to improve their bitter or bland taste. Learn how to eat hazelnuts today!
Steps
Step 1. Pick up the ripe acorns
Green acorns are not ripe and edible (but grown green acorns can ripen if placed in a clean, dry place). Raw acorns that are not processed contain high concentrations of tannic acid, which makes them bitter and may be toxic to humans if consumed in large quantities. Treat only brown, ripe acorns with water. Avoid taking any acorn that is blackened, dusty, musty or the like. Quality nuts are those that are yellowish. There are several types of oak trees that produce natural nuts in their raw state.
- White oak produces bland-tasting acorns. The best plants you can harvest hazelnuts from are bicolour oak, bur oak, and Garry oak. You usually won't need to leach the acorns you harvest there.
- American red oak produces tastier acorns.
- The acorns produced by Emory Oak are soft enough that you don't need to treat them.
- Black oak produces very bitter acorns and they need to be genuinely treated to remove this bitterness.
Step 2. Treat the acorns
To get the acorns to have a slightly sweet taste and a nutty flavor, you need to reduce their bitterness by simply washing them with water. You can shell and leach acorns by soaking them in water or boiling them in water. Regularly decant the hot water (a technique also known as bleaching). Keep doing this until the water is no longer brown when you replace it.
- The other leaching method is to pour a tablespoon of baking soda in a quart of water, then let the acorns soak in the solution for 12 to 15 hours.
- A more rustic method is to bag the shelled nuts and soak them in a clean, smooth stream for a few days until the water runs clear.
Step 3. Remove the hazelnuts
Once your acorns have been laundered, simply let them dry or make toasted nuts after drying them, as you wish. On the other hand, raw acorns can be stored for months without spoiling. This greatly increases their value, as they become materials that you can use as needed. However, they are not ready for use until they have been washed.
Step 4. Make acorn coffee
Shell the ripe and leached acorns. Split the pits, put in a baking dish and cover them. Grill over low heat in an oven to dry slowly. Also, be sure to stir frequently. Once the acorns are toasted and present a medium light or dark color, you can grind them. The resulting mixture can be mixed with coffee sold in stores or used directly to make hazelnut coffee.
Step 5. Make acorn flour
You can make a wholemeal flour or sift it to remove the fibers and make a finer pastry flour called acorn starch. For further instructions for making acorn flour, do some research online for this purpose. You can use this flour to make muffins, bread, etc.
Korean cuisine is by far one of the few that uses acorn starch. Some Korean noodles and jellies are made from acorn starch. Since this starch is a very popular ingredient, several Asian stores sell it
Step 6. Pickle the blanched acorns in brine
Use an olive recipe and substitute the acorns for a treat.
Step 7. Replace nuts and beans or legumes with acorns
Crushed or crushed acorns can substitute for many legumes and nuts like macadamia nuts, peanuts, chickpeas, etc. Apply your usual recipe and replace these items with acorns. Like most nuts, acorns are nutritious, high-density foods that you can use freely.
- Make acorn-based dukkah. Dukkah is a dry, spicy dish that has many uses, but most commonly bread is dipped in butter or olive oil.
- Sprinkle a fresh salad with toasted and mashed acorns, which will be part of the seasoning.
Step 8. Grill the acorns
Once they are toasted, remove the shell and dip the rest in highly concentrated sugar syrup.
- Make acorn candies using a nougatine recipe, then spread them out on buttered baking sheets to cool.
- Make nut acorn butter similar to that made with peanuts or almond butter.
- Use low-fat pancake recipes like pancakes with acorn starch or those for low-fat cookies with hazelnut butter and calorie-free stevia sweetener or raw honey!
Step 9. Add acorns to the stews
Use acorns in stews instead of potatoes or beans. Their slightly sweet nutty taste will add extra flavor to your stew.
Step 10. Add acorns to a mash
You can also add them to a potato salad. It can add a great touch to those standard dishes and give you a good conversation piece.
Advice
- Give the ripe acorns to the farm animals. Avoid feeding them green acorns, as they can be poisonous to them. Green hazelnuts will ripen naturally after falling from the tree. You can use them to feed humans or livestock after they turn brown.
- The oak acorn collection season is usually September through October in the northern hemisphere (late summer).
- If you have an oil press, make acorn oil. The latter has properties similar to those of olive oil and is used in Morocco as well as in Algeria.
- In Germany acorns are used to make Eichel Kaffee, while the Turks use them to make racahout which is similar to spicy hot chocolate.
- Some Native Americans call acorns the grains that come from trees because they turned them into flour.
- Reap the dietary benefits. Like most nuts, acorns are high in protein. They don't contain as much fat as other nuts, but they are a good source of complex carbohydrates, fiber if whole, in addition to vitamins and minerals.
Studies have shown that acorns, as is usually the case with nuts, can help control bad cholesterol in the blood as well as blood sugar levels
Warnings
- The presence of holes in an acorn indicates an infestation with worms. You should also avoid dusty or blackened acorns.
- To collect only edible acorns, you can sit under a tree like the Native Americans and collect while making sure to put the hazelnuts with holes in a garbage bag. If you don't, you risk picking them up again. Separate acorns from different trees or at least different types of oaks. When you're done collecting, put the acorns in a bucket of water and wash off anything that is floating. You can use this waste in your compost or better yet dry it out and burn it. In fact, most acorns that float contain worms that try to pop out, which lightens them and makes them float. The fewer worms you have, the fewer adults there will be after laying eggs and the more edible acorns you will find to collect! Acorns that do not float are good for consumption. If they're green, put them in a dry, dark place until they turn brown.