Since the first of time and even before agriculture has been used by the Greeks to have better food sources,’Nuts’ were a steady food and nutritional source in the diet of manhood in the dark ages. During those times, nuts were plentiful, as there were much more woods as now, and well liked for their simple storage, which allowed people to maintain them for times where food was hard to discover.
Nuts have their place in all cultures and throughout just about all cuisine around the world. Nuts are enjoyed by people of all ages because of their subtle flavor and higher fat and carbohydrate content. It’s this subtle flavor that Chefs like when creating new dishes and variants.
DESCRIPTION & SPECIES
Under the group nuts, we know anything from a seed into a legume or tuber. The peanut, for instance, is a legume, the Brazil nut and macadamia nut are almonds and seeds are the seed of a fruit like a peach.
Botanically nuts are only seeded fruits with a hard or leathery shell which have a edible kernel, which can be enclosed in a soft inner skin.
Nut trees of any species have been found throughout the world. Almonds for example are located in California, Spain, Morocco, Italy as well as Australia, where as the walnut can be located anywhere from North America to the Andes and Persia to Australia. Asia also has a terrific variety of nuts.
ALMOND
Scientist consider the almond for a stone fruit, similar to cherries, peaches and prunes.
Since many people only know the seed (stone) of the fruit, it’s usually accepted as a nut.
Almond on the tree, look like little green peaches. When ripe the shell will open and show the nut in its shell.
There are numerous varieties of almonds.
This exact same apricot was taken to Europe and became the apricot fruit, which is now enjoyed throughout the world. The bitter almond kernel is poisonous in its raw state and has to be boiled quickly and poached in a oven before being further utilized. It’s primarily utilized in Chinese desserts such as the almond bean curd.
The sweet almond is usually limited for fresh consumption. In 1986, California alone made 70,000 tons of almonds, which is half of the world’s manufacturing. They’re used for snacks, marzipan, confectionery, and desserts as well as for the production of liqueur nature, cosmetic and oil products.
Only the female trees are creating a 2cm x 2.5cm nut at the pinecone.
In the old days, the bunya bunya pine nuts were steady meals for the aborigines and used in ceremonials. Nowadays, the nuts gain in popularity throughout the tendency of indigenous food in Australia (bush food) in the past few years.
The nut is loaded is carbohydrate, like the chestnut, and therefore used more like a potato than a nut. The bunya bunya nuts can be eaten raw but are often boiled for easy removing of skin. Shelled nuts are then butter roasted and fried with sugar or pepper, or added to stews and soups.
RED BOPPLE NUT
In contrary to most other nuts, the reddish bopple nut is quite low on fat, but very high in potassium and calcium. The low fat content make this nut quite easy digestible.
COCONUT
Truly every part of the coconut is used, but just the coconut milk and the coconut meat are all foods. The casing is used as charcoal, the husk is used to make ropes, brushes and clothing, and the back of the tree and leaves are used for roofs of homes and construction material respectively.
The fruit of this hands’cocos nucifera’ has an edible kernel and so qualifies as a nut. Coconut palms grow best near the beachfront but have been demonstrated to withstand high elevation, even though the production rate is diminishing as farther away from the sea that the tree grows.
The big thick green pod encloses a brown fibrous husk around a brown shell, which comprises a layer of soft white flesh and the crystal clear water in the middle. Sub-species found only on a single island of the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, produces a nut often weighing over 20 kg, which requires 10 years to ripen.
Coconuts are the worlds most commercially employed nuts. Notably the meat, or copra, as it’s called after sun drying, is very important for its export industries, in coconut growing countries. The coconut is a significant food source particularly in South East Asia, India, Brazil and the South Pacific Islands.
The copra can be attracted shredded or desiccated and can be used in confectioneries, ice creams and to coat chicken or fish for frying. Yet much of it is pressed because of its oil also known as coconut butter because it’s fatty and white at room temperature. Not only can it be used for cooking and to make margarine, but in addition, it goes to soaps, detergents, shampoos, face lotion, candles and perfumes.
Additionally it is a significant ingredient in glycerin, synthetic rubber, security glass and hydraulic brake fluid. The coconut milk has the consistency and color of skim milk and is available frozen or canned.
CANDLE NUT
More recently, the nuts were grounded to a paste, mixed with copra (grated coconut milk ) and ten shaped into a candle.
Candlenuts would be the seed of the candle berry tree indigenous to Indonesia and Malaysia but broadly spread throughout south East Asia, the South Pacific and Sri Lanka.
The nut has a very significant content on fat and is appreciated for its extracted oil for light in addition to cooking. The nut is colored grey to black, about 5cm in diameter, with a thin, papery husk containing a couple of nuts.
Candlenut oil for lighting purposes is expressed by roasting the nuts when they’re just half ripe as oil for cooking is expressed by roasting the nuts when they’re fully ripe. For human consumption, the nuts need to be roasted as uncooked once have been inducing sicknesses.
PALM NUT
The palmyra palm native to many South East Asian Countries creates a tough, shiny nut, where a sweetish gel or sap is expressed. While this sap is used at the Indonesian cuisine for desserts and sauces, it’s on other recognized product that’s begin produced from the palmyra palm – The Palm Sugar (gula melacca).
There aren’t reliable data on the nutritional value of the palm nut, but it’s widely known that the fat is saturated.
MACADAMIA NUT
The macadamia trees are evergreen and reach a height of around 20 meters.
It’s quite tricky to crack the macadamia nut since it is shell is quite hard and so tight into the kernel that if cracked the nut is crushed. In Hawaii, American scientist developed a means of separating the kernel in the shell by decreasing them in drying bins. Then they developed the first business cracker. It was through both of these improvements that the macadamia nut could be shaped to the industrial importance it has today.
This is also the reason macadamia nuts are just available already de-shelled. Macadamia nuts are also valued for their oil and the macadamia nut butter.
They’re available roasted and salted. When purchasing macadamia nuts, give care they are packed in a air tight or vacuum bags, as they become readily rancid once opened.
WATER CHESTNUTS
The title refers to a nut such as tuber of a aquatic plant named Trapa. The crops are common to a number of areas of the world, but are mainly utilized in Japan, China and Thailand where it’s also a sought after ingredient in it is cuisines.
The trapa plant roots in lakes and ponds and sends, its’ leaves to the surface, somewhat like a water lily. The water chestnut grows on the roots beneath the surface. Water chestnuts are round and flat with a diameter of 5 – 7cm. They’ve a soft black skin and white flesh like the flesh of a coconut. Water chestnuts can also be boiled and made into flour, which can be used for thickening of sauces and dishes, similar to cornstarch.
CHESTNUT
Chestnuts are considered to have originated in Southern Europe and Persia even though they’re also found in China, Japan and Northern America.
Chestnuts are the only nuts, which can be treated like a vegetable since they contain more starch (30 percent ) and less fat .
Chestnuts are also made into a flour high on starch and fiber.
CASHEW NUT
Originating from the West Indies and indigenous to the north of Brazil, Portuguese explorers introduced the nut to India and Malaysia and parts of Africa.
The hard-shelled nut grows within the cashew apple. When mature the cashew nut appears at the end of the yellow or red apple. The cashew tree is a member of the poison ivy family and farmers need to take great precautions when yanking the nuts. The smoke and steam, which happens however may still be harmful to eyes and skin. When heated the cashew nuts are benign and could be extracted.
GINKGO NUT
The ginkgo is the ancient maidenhair tree, which survives as a wild tree just in China.
The fruit resembles a small plum but has a sour and sour shell. In China, the ginkgo nut is a favorite ingredient to vegetarian dishes. The nuts are available canned or fresh.
HAZELNUT/FILBERTS
The nut of the hazel bush is native to Europe and North America and has been mentioned in writings as far back as 2838 B.C., and has been credited of currying many human ills in addition to being considered outstanding for Boldness and use as a hair tonic.
Hazelnuts have a very hard shell, which needs to be deciphered by a nutcracker before getting into the kernel.
PEANUT
The peanut isn’t a true nut. It’s the seed of a leguminous plant with a soft, brown colored brittle shell and belong to the Botanical family of peas and beans. But they’re typically considered in addition to the nuts because of they are physical characteristics and nutritional value. The nuts grow on the long roots of this plant and beneath the ground. The peanut is native to Brazil and has been discovered there since the very first recording in 950 B.C..
Now, peanuts are cultivated throughout the tropics all around the world (India, China, West Africa, Australia and the USA are the biggest peanut growing nations ). Peanuts also create peanut butter, margarine, and also utilised in canning of sardines. Peanuts are available complete, de-shelled and de-skinned and raw or toasted.
PINENUT
It’s quite tricky to set up a pinenut industry since the trees are growing very slow and do not carry a good deal of fruits until they’re 75 years old.
Pine nuts are largely got raw and then toasted, grilled or fried.
PISTACHIO NUT
The pistachio nut is a tiny green kernel, which develops on the pistachio tree originating in Syria, Palestine and Persia.
The natural colour of the shell is grayish white, but a few times the blossoms are dyed red to cover some of the discoloration.
WALNUT
English walnuts, butternuts and hickory nuts are walnuts, botanical talking. All those walnuts have various shells and kernels but the English walnut with it is rough, rippled shell and yellowish brown kernel is the most popular and broadly called’The Walnut’.