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Peeling pine nuts at home is quite difficult. Small dense seeds of the northern tree with a strong shell are almost impossible to break. There is no equipment for cleaning pine nuts at home. Residents of the northern regions know the secrets of cleaning hard northern fruits. You can take advantage of their years of experience.
How and how much to cook a pine cone to extract nuts
To clean northern nuts, cedar shoots are harvested in late autumn. They should turn dark gray or brown and become covered with hard woody scales. This means that the nuts are ripe and ready to eat. It is possible to get nuts from a cone only if it is pre-boiled for half an hour, but not more than 40 minutes.
It is better to cook cedar shoots in the open air and in an old vessel. When cooked, they release a large amount of resin and a strong aroma. Tar deposits from the walls of the pan are almost impossible to wash off.
For cooking, take a pan of a suitable size. Collected cones are put on its bottom and filled with water. The liquid should completely cover the cedar fruits. From above it is necessary to impose a layer of grass or hay. This trick will help get rid of excess resin, the shoots will not float to the surface.
The pot is put on fire, the water is brought to a boil. After the fire, it is necessary to reduce and cook the cones until a strong coniferous smell appears. This will take approximately half an hour. After the pan is removed from the fire, the shoots are laid out on a dry surface to cool. As soon as the cedar fruits have cooled, they begin to peel them.
How to peel pine nuts at home
The hard shell of northern tree nuts is difficult to remove. There are several ways to crack pine nuts at home. To do this, use various improvised tools and ingenuity. To make the nut shell more pliable, it is softened with boiling water, cold, heat.
How to soften pine nuts with boiling water
The nuts are laid out in a shallow bowl and poured with boiling water for 5-10 minutes. After the nuts are taken out and spread on a dry towel, allowed to drain. Then you can start peeling them.
How to quickly peel pine nuts by roasting
You can roast nuts in the oven. After the shell is easier to clean, and the taste of the finished product will be much better.
You can peel pine nuts at home in the following way:
- Rinse cedar seeds under running water, do not wipe afterwards.
- Preheat the oven to + 150 Сᵒ.
- Spread the nuts on a baking sheet in a single layer and send to the oven. They should be placed on the topmost shelf in the oven.
- Pine fruits are simmered for about 15 minutes. The process should be controlled so as not to overcook them.
As soon as the shell becomes golden or light brown, pine nuts can be removed. They are poured onto a towel and allowed to cool for half an hour. After this time, the nuts can be peeled with a regular rolling pin. They are covered with a cloth and with effort they begin to roll the rolling pin over the fruits, while the shell easily splits.
How to peel pine nuts from the shell by freezing
First you need to put hard nuts in the freezer to soften for a couple of hours. They are first placed in a plastic bag. The air from the bag must be released. The cellophane is then tied tightly. After freezing, nuts are easy to clean by crushing with a rolling pin. The shell becomes brittle, easily separated from the core.
How to shell pine nuts using a temperature difference
For this method, first heat the pan on the stove. After that, fruits are poured into it without adding oil. Within 2-3 minutes, the seeds of the cedar cone are heated, stirring constantly. Do not fry the nuts for more than 5 minutes, they will lose their taste.
After the specified time, the product is transferred to a container filled with ice water. Keep it there for no more than 1 minute. After the contents of the cones are transferred to a towel, allow excess moisture to be absorbed.
Dried pine nuts can be placed in a plastic bag, let the air out of it and tie it tightly. After that, you can crush the shell with a rolling pin. Strong pressure on the fruit should not be, as the shell becomes fragile, you can damage the kernel.
How to chop pine nuts at home manually
In addition to heat treatment, for cleaning hard nuts, various improvised tools are used that are in every household.
These can be such devices:
- rolling pin;
- pliers;
- garlic press;
- a hammer.
If you get used to it, you can learn how to clean the seeds of the cone without spoiling the kernels.
Plunger
With a rolling pin, it is easy to clean processed and fresh pine nuts at home. They are placed in a bag or on a towel, covering the top with a free edge. After they begin to roll out with a rolling pin. Soaked in boiling water or frozen cedar cone seeds are cleaned with a minimum of effort. It takes force to peel raw nuts.
Hammer
For this cleaning method, boiled or fresh seeds are taken. They are laid out on a waffle towel in half. The free end is covered with cedar fruits. After that, they begin to lightly hit with a hammer. The main thing is not to overdo it, so as not to get a show from the kernels and shell fragments.
Pliers, garlic press
If there are few nuts, they are cleaned with improvised tools: pliers or a garlic press. In this case, the cedar seeds are cleaned one at a time. For this method, you need to be patient, because this work is painstaking.
Pre-seeds of cedar cones are best poured over with boiling water, then dried. After each fruit is clamped between the parts of the pliers and the handles begin to squeeze until they crunch. Do this carefully and slowly, as it is easy to crush the nut completely.
A few cone seeds are loaded into the garlic press and the handles begin to be squeezed. You should not do this abruptly, using maximum effort: there is a high probability of getting nut porridge. The press may well act as a shelling machine for pine nuts.
Pine nut shelling machines
In modern conditions, large volumes of northern nuts are processed on special machines – pine nut shellers. With their help, you can clean up to 70 kg of raw materials per hour. Such machines can be seen at special processing factories, or you can make your own.
Pine nut peeler performs a full cycle of processing raw materials:
- crushes the shell;
- separates the nuclei;
- removes the film from the nut;
- weeds out debris from the finished product.
With the help of a pine nut peeler, you can clean seeds not only for home use, but also create a small business for processing northern wood raw materials.
How to clean pine nuts on an industrial scale
Until recently, the entire process of cleaning the northern walnut was done manually. Now powerful machines capable of processing several tons of raw materials per day can cope with this. All of these devices work differently.
Here are a few basic principles for how pine nut peelers work:
- Mechanical method – the seeds are split in a special container using a pine nut press cleaner, after which they are poured into another container for further processing.
- Vacuum method – the raw material is subjected to pressure drops in a special container, after which the husk is easy to clean.
- Crushing and sizing method – at the first stage, the raw materials are subjected to mechanical action of the pine nut sheller, after which they are poured into separate containers for complete cleaning.
- Exposure to liquid nitrogen – the seeds are heated, and then dipped in liquid nitrogen, the shell easily crumbles without any extra effort.
At the last stage of production under factory conditions, cedar fruits are sorted by size and packed in airtight containers to preserve their taste for a long time.
The only negative is that the equipment often spoils the cores themselves, leaving their particles in the total mass of the finished product. Such crushed seeds are also sold, only at a lower cost than whole ones.
Processing nuts after cleaning
In accordance with state food standards, pine nut kernels must be sorted.
Packings of premium northern nuts contain chipped particles (no more than 10% of the total mass of the finished product). In the product of the first grade, the content of crushed kernels is allowed no more than 15%. Poor quality nut packages may contain up to 80% crushed kernels.
Sorting and calibration of cedar fruits takes place on special equipment. After cleaning, the resulting kernels are dried and roasted in dryers to remove excess moisture, prevent the growth of mold and pathogenic bacteria.
Conclusion
You can peel pine nuts at home using various tools and tricks. After heat treatment and freezing, the product is easy to clean, but it can not be stored for more than a week. Being in the shell, the nuts retain their beneficial properties and taste for a long time. It is recommended to clean them immediately before use.
With the help of machines, large volumes of nuts are processed in a short time. The finished product has a long shelf life due to high-quality drying and vacuum packaging.
