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easier hickory nut procesing

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swamp monkey:
Hickory nuts are hard to pick out of the shell.  You can work up quite an appetite getting the "goodie" out.  I tried a Native American method for processing hickory nuts and I have to say it speeds things up and is EASY.

The steps are:

1 collect nuts
2 place nuts in bucket full of water.  Cull the floaters.  (I opened about 25 floaters and every one was a dud.)
3 crack the nuts open.  make sure the shells are in small pieces.
4 place in a pot with water.  nut shells sink, nut meat floats.  Skim the nut meat off and let dry. 

I did this while boiling and found two things.  First, the boiling is only needed to get nut milk.  If you don't want that then skip the boiling.  Second, I needed to make the shells smaller.  I crushed them into smaller pieces and got better results. 

swamp monkey:
I got about two cups from that small basket of nuts.  The process cracking to final pan of meat was roughly 1.5 hours.  I drained the water off the shells at the bottom (see picture below) and thought I had some nut meat worth picking out.   No.  No, I didn't.  The remaining parts were painfully thin and small.  This process worked very well.  I was able to remove about 85-90% of the nut meat without picking. 

I am ready for my hickory nut pie!

Yum yum!

bubby:
 No hickory to speak of out here, I'd love to try some though, might have to try and trade for some

swamp monkey:
And the prize  . . .  a hickory nut pie.  I used a few pecan halves for decoration.    mmmmm.  mmmmmmm!

I hunted this weekend and am thinking about cutting my bitternut hickories for bow wood and planting shellbark hickories as replacement.  Funny how my stomach influenced my hunt.  ;)

Danzn Bar:
Hickory nut pie is becoming a favorite at our Thanksgiving dinner..........
DBar

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