Tuesday 15 October 2019

Preserving the Hazelnuts

I have no idea if this will work and I'm sure it wasn't worth the effort but it seemed like a good idea at the time (which was several weeks ago) mainly because it's such a rare thing for the squirrels to leave hazelnuts long enough for them to ripen and fall off the tree.

I picked up all this lot and spent an age shelling them - lots were hollow


I ended up with just these
So I went and searched among the leaves on the ground picked up some more, took another age shelling them, added them to the tray and popped them all  in a cool oven for a couple of hours.

Then layered them in a jar with salt, something I have plenty of due to buying a gi-normous bag full from Approved Food  about 5 years ago.

The instructions came from the book I picked up at the book sale 'How to store your garden produce' by Piers Warren.

I'll keep them for a while to see what happens - edible or mouldy?


Back tomorrow
Sue

11 comments:

  1. Could they be roasted and frozen? However you do this, I hope it is successful. Hazelnuts are so wonderful. The Hungarian toasted hazelnut cake is so beyond delicious.

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  2. How absolutely wonderful to have your own home grown hazelnuts! Fingers crossed.
    xx

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  3. That is a good haul. I picked up enough for a bowl full and just sat at the kitchen table with g.children, cracked them and ate them, quite a few duds though. Hope they taste good.

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  4. Well worth a try Sue, they would all cost a fortune in the shops. xx

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  5. First of all, well done on beating the squirrels to the nuts! I'm sure they'll be delicious.

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  6. Lovely, Sue. Last year we roasted the few our squirrels left us with and then just kept them in a jar in the fridge - they were really tasty in a fruit pie and just nibbled on!

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  7. Hazels seem to have done well this year. There are quite a few around the estate and every one has a crop underneath - I have never seen a squirrel here. They don't look anywhere near ripe though.

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  8. It is interesting to see all the things from nature that we can produce something from. I think it is fun, even if it takes time to make it!

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  9. I melt chocolate and mix the hazelnuts in to coat them. No chance then that they get stored because once the chocolate is set, I eat them!! Unfortunately, as lovely as Tanya's roasted ones sound, they wouldn't last either!

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  10. We had a hazel in the garden of our last house, the blasted grey squirrels got all the nuts though. Oddly, there are no squirrels here at all - not that I mind!

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  11. I'll be interested in how this works. I always thought if they were dry they'd store. I'm going to purge the squirrels here next year, there's been a carpet of nut shells everywhere, and I'm gutted that I get to eat none of them.

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