How To Crack Every Nut | Method Mastery | Epicurious

[Music] I'm an zyada I'm a chef at the Institute of Culinary Education and today I'm going to show you how to open every nut so here are some of the tools I'll be using today I have a nutcracker that has curved edges I have a more traditional Nutcracker that you might have at home straight on both sides I have a garlic press that we'll use for some of our more delicate nuts I have a paring knife and for our tougher nuts I have a hammer English walnuts like most nuts it has a tough outer shell and the inside is the meat that we're gonna eat walnuts are known for their buttery flavor they're a little bit bitter and they're high in omega threes which are really great for your brain this one's a little bit tough to crack so we're gonna use our nut cracker I'm gonna gently squeeze it till it cracks open and I want to use not too much pressure because I don't want to destroy the nut if I'm too tough I'm gonna smash my nut into pieces pick away the outer shell with our hands and that's our English walnut so if you don't have a nutcracker there's a few other things you can do using the paring knife go along the top seam of your walnut if it's too tough take the tip of your paring knife in and just give it a little twist and it'll pop right open and another method you can do is using the nuts to crack each other I'm gonna put them in my hand with their sides touching and they're kind of stem ends facing away and I'm gonna use them to crack each other there we go that'll work as well if you are really at a loss for tools and those are a few ways to open an English walnut black walnut much more bitter than the traditional English walnut the shell is also a lot harder so if I try to do it in my Nutcracker I can't do it maybe you can but anything that's too tough stop we're gonna use our hammer and then from there the black walnut has a stronger bitter flavor to it the English walnut is a little more mellow and mild make sure you take any of the little shells out of there so you do not want to bite on one of those and that's our black walnut Brazil net this is one of the toughest ones to crack but we're going to use our Nutcracker so I'm gonna line my Brazil nut in my Nutcracker with the flatter side they play this kind of like flat spine side give it a little smack again I don't want to destroy it I just want to break the shell not go through the entire nut and this is our beautiful Brazil nut that's a little bit of a skin on it that's totally fine you can peel it off if you'd like as well I believe Brazil nuts are best and eaten out of hand straight-up raw I don't see a lot of recipes with them there's such a treat to just enjoy right out of the shell YUM another method maybe you can do I don't think I have the muscle for it you can take this flat side and take the sharp end of another one and use that as the blade to break it open but this is only if you spend a lot of time at the gym and are very muscular and nope but that's why humans invented tools American chestnut chestnuts are different than most nuts because they're higher in starch when you buy them if some are cracked throw those away because the insides are probably rancid if I were to roast this just as is the water content would cause this to explode in the oven which we don't want so we're gonna score it first to allow some of the steam to escape as it's roasting you can score it by cutting it across the equator of the nut or you can take your herring knife here let's make a little X on the top and you can absolutely Roces over an open fire like the song goes and you can put a whole bunch on a sheet pan we got to go ahead and roast them for 35 minutes here on my roasted chestnut they look a little golden around the edges they smell fantastic I'm gonna go ahead and open my roasted chestnut taking the show off taking that paper ease skin off too you can also boil the chestnuts to get the skin off I like roasting because you're gonna get a much stronger flavor with a high heat it has that almost like potato caramelize the maple leaf flavor and that's our American chestnut hard-shell pecan oh maybe known as a hardshell pecan or Pekin however you say it all good you can't get it wrong because there's nothing not to love about a pecan we're gonna start by snipping off the ends with some strong kitchen shears and then I'm gonna use pliers to just gently crack around the shell moving it in a circle that way I don't destroy the nut inside and just kind of break it in half from here can take the meat out sometimes you'll get a little bit stuck in the grooves here so just make sure you go over head and check and take those out cuz those are gonna hurt you're not gonna taste good pecans are most loved for pecan pie which is probably the most decadent dessert that exists because it's just a slice of rich buttery goodness and sugar I think I had a slice of pecan pie a few months ago and I still feel kind of full from it but it was so good it was so worth it and that's our hard shell pecan paper shell pecan it has a softer shell as the name suggests if they're soft enough you can use your hand to crack them open by pressing along this seam that runs lengthwise not a task for people who have long nails so do this before you get your manicure and then I can pick off my halves right there so this is technically called a pecan have although we kind of think of this as like a hole when we see it in the bag this tastes much more like a light caramel flavor to it if it's too tough to use your hands for you can also use the side of your knife similar to how you would smash garlic use my wrist give it a little crack and pop it out from there so those are two different types of pecans but there are over 500 types in existence and that's our soft shell folk on Almond so the almond has a bit more of a neutral flavor to it so you can use it in a lot of different recipes so they can take on other flavors really well so for this I'm going to use a nutcracker I'm going to add it to the smaller portion of the Nutcracker here I'm gonna go round little breaks open if you don't have a Nutcracker at home it just needs some sort of force so you can even put it in your door between the hinge and the door and then slam the door shut and that will crack your nut as well almonds are a member of the rose family you could absolutely eat the skins but you can blanch them to get the skins off which means you just boil them in water for about five minutes if you want more of a lighter color you can use almonds for making your own nut milk at home all you need is a high-powered blender about a cup of almonds and add about four cups of water blend it until it's totally smooth you can actually do that with any nuts almonds are great because they have the most neutral flavor but you can use walnuts I've even seen like black sesame seed milk any nut will work this is kind of fun and those are our almonds macadamia so it's a tropical nut really really rich and buttery and it has one of the tougher shells so we're gonna have to use a mer give him a little nest so he has a comfortable last few moments of his life got stunt double right here perfect separate the meat out and the meat is actually the technical term you can call it meat even though it is totally vegetarian and that's how you open a macadamia dwarf chestnut again we want the same deal we want to roast it before we shell it I'm gonna go ahead and score them in a nice X shape so I'm gonna put them all on my roasting pan and I'm gonna go ahead and bake them for about 20 minutes and here they are they let them cool for a little bit so they're not too hot to handle peel away the shell what a gorgeous color on them so you got a little golden nice and fluffy mmm just tastes like buttered popcorn marshmallows sweet potato all together and that's how you open and bake a dwarf chestnut hazelnut we think of hazelnuts a lot with desserts because they have that wonderful nutty aroma and they pair so well with chocolate the shell is a little bit softer sometimes so we're gonna try it with a garlic press and try to keep that shape intact it's beautiful the skin part of the hazelnut is very bitter so the best way to get the skin off is to roast it for about 12 minutes in a 350 oven then let it cool for one minute covered in a towel so it steams and then from there you can use the towel to rub the skins off the bitter skins will fall and you'll have a nice hosted hazelnut to enjoy and that's how you crack a hazelnut a corn yes a corn that fell from an oak tree which is a nut and totally edible by humans as well as squirrel it's got a very tough shell so we're gonna use the hammer you might have noticed that squirrels don't use hammers but they cheat by burying the nuts in dirt and then when they come back month later it's softer so that you can crack it open with their teeth I'm not gonna bury my nut in dirt I'm gonna do it the more civilized way of smashing it this one is moldy about 50% of your acorns will probably not use but the other 50% we can acorns are high in tannin which give it a really bitter flavor tannins are acids that taste bitter tannins are also present and things like tea and wine and coffee after we get the meat out of the shell and I'm going to put it in water we're gonna boil our acorns for 30 minutes here are my acorns the water is nice and browned that means I've got all the tannins out into the liquid and I'm gonna go ahead and strain them you can go ahead and roast them and then you can garnish them in salads you can make a corn soup these are shelled boiled acorns Pina despite the name he is actually not a nut he is a legume which means that its seeds are together in a pod so to crack them open you can usually just use your hands to squeeze it the shell is really papery and light and you'll have your two peanuts inside of it and from here you can take the skin off as well if you desire this is a raw peanut peanuts are edible right out of the pot but if you put them in the oven you're gonna get more of that peanut flavor and you can absolutely make your own peanut butter at home after roasting your nuts let them cool completely and then you're gonna blend them up in a food processor for about 10 minutes or so because you want to blend it long enough for the oil to start to separate out that's when you've got a delicious nut butter so you can make your own almond nut butter you can take this in a lot of directions : that it grows in West Africa and it has a very bitter flavor but after we roast it it'll get sweeter and it'll taste maybe a bit more like nutmeg also contains a little bit of caffeine and has been used to flavor soda has a little bit of a fragile shell you can use your hands to smash it I'm going to use a knife get that papery skin off and just rub it off and that's our Kola nut soft shell almond there's a lot of different types of almonds these you can usually use your hands to peel off of the soft shell varieties and kind of twist it gently and out comes this lovely long beautiful almond these particular soft shell almonds were grown in Afghanistan so they're longer than our normal almonds that we see at the supermarket here and they're a bit harder and crunch here as well just don't mind me gonna be here for a while hilly nut this one grows usually in the Philippines and it's used a lot for candies and Brittles it has a bit of a mild light flavor to it similar to a pine nut or a sunflower seed so these come with a very hard shell on them in that case you'll want to take either a knife or a meat cleaver to score it around its waist and then from there you can smack it and crack it in half these are already shells so they have a thin skin on them you can take that off by just gently rubbing it with your fingers you can see it's very buttery and juicy in the center and that's our pili nut Inco nut the gingko has a beautiful white shell and a lovely green inside it's used in Chinese cooking and has a little bit of a cheesy aroma to it and to get the shell off we're going to boil it for about 30 minutes until it slides right out that's the fastest way to get the shell off so these have been boiling for about 30 minutes and it also let them cool just so they're not too hot to work with gonna strain them out so if you're able to squeeze them out by hand you can do that if they're a little bit tougher I'm gonna go ahead and get my chef's knife again the thin white shell comes off and inside we have this lovely kind of yellowy green and it feels squishy or - also cuz it's been boiled also believed to be an aphrodisiac and that's our ginkgo California pistachio usually when you buy it the shell will be mostly open already so for this you can just use your hands to crack them open and I would advise not using your nail you can just use the pads of your fingers to break them open that way you don't ruin now one of the reasons I love nuts is because you get to have some involvement in the eating in the cooking process so it's a bit more playful you can rub the skins off if you like but I don't mind them if you find a pistachio with a smaller opening that's harder to get with your fingers you can go ahead and use a free shell and wedge it in between and that will help break it open and then you can do the rest with your hands the statutes are great for desserts your recipe calls for pistachios I would try to buy them shelled already otherwise you'll spend a lot of time shelling for your recipe but you can use them in baklava you can use them in cookies and they add a wonderful green color and that's our California pistachio Turkish pistachio it's in the same family as California pistachio but it's a little bit smaller and skinnier as you can see darker in color as well and it's gonna have a stronger more announced pistachio flavor we're gonna open the same way that we did with our California buddy yeah it just tastes like someone took a pistachio and turn the volume up the skin here has a little bit of a purpley amber color you feel a little bit tough in general if something has a tough skin you can roast it or you can boil it and it will come off such a vibrant yellowy green color looks super fresh and that's our Turkish pistachio pine nut it is the seed of a pine tree and it does live in a pine cone there's about 20 or so that are edible or big enough to harvest and eat most pine cones are too small to care about and we want to crack the shell I'm gonna use my garlic press pine nuts are usually used traditionally in the base for pesto but you can actually use different nuts and pesto as well you can use walnuts pecans the pine nuts give it such a lovely buttery flavor you can see there's a light skinned on it you can always peel that off and very fragile now you can see why they're so expensive I'm gonna try the pliers just because I want to see if I can do like light like crack around as I rotate it like we did for the pecans I'm gonna get one that's intact nope so I'm gonna use kitchen shears for the pine nuts so these kitchen shears have a spot here that says herb stripper and it has these two little holes that's for us to slide maybe rosemary threw it and released the leaves from the stem I'm gonna go ahead and slide my pine nuts into that round part there to open up my pine nut oh there we go the scissors worked slide them out and these are my pine nuts young coconut it's technically not a nut but nuts in the name so we're gonna go for it tie my hair back the inside of a young coconut has some water in it and then the surrounding is gonna be a softer flesh so to crack this one open I want a flat surface to work with that way nothing is rolling around I'm gonna use a towel just to help stabilize everything we're gonna open up the top almost like a pumpkin right if you carve a jack-o-lantern get this top part off and you put a candle inside I'm gonna use the heel of this cleaver to cut around the top I want to have my left hand out of the picture right safe behind my back take it out rotate it alright help some juice pop out fits a paring knife going in a nice clean a little bit deeper cut now and see the coconut water is starting to drip up until I get that Center square out here we go now we can pour off my coconut water enjoy a lovely refreshing beverage YUM so now that I've got all the coconut water out I want to break it open and scoop out the flesh let's try going down gonna cut it into quarters I'm gonna break it into more manageable sizes and then from here I want to cut the skin away this one is browning pretty quickly it's just starting to oxidize meaning all the antioxidants present in it are starting to react with the air so you want to keep it in water until you use it for it to stay fresh and that's my coconut meat and that's how you open a young coconut Cheers young mature coconut to crack them open we're going to use our cleaver and for one last time the hammer let's start by stabilizing my coconut be a little damp and I'm identifying these three eyes at the top and I'm gonna find one that's the softest of the three and I'm gonna break that one open and get that out so I can drain out my liquid if you have a strong paring knife or you can even use a nail and then hammer that in just anything to get a little drain for us to pour the liquid off it could also use a giant rock and smash it caveman style one more that should do it so now that I've got a hole now I can go ahead with my paring knife just clean it out and I can pour off the water and now to get the meat out we're gonna use the hammer around its equator go we want to separate out the white meat there we go so I'm going to take the hard shell off the meat and then I want to use my knife let's cut it into smaller pieces that fit my paring knife just be careful anytime you have a paring knife going toward your hand and that's the coconut meat so you can use coconut meat to make coconut milk can blend it up it's also a great snack just on its own you'll want to store it in water to keep it from browning and then consume it within a few days because it is fresh mmm this is better than like any coconut macaroon I've ever had any pina colada just fresh from the coconut I feel like I'm on vacation and that's how you open a mature coconut nuts are such a delicious nutritious food to eat every day they are a great source of fiber and protein minerals they're great addition to your diet whether it's snacking on them throughout the day or adding them to your salads to your chocolate chip cookies there's so many things you can do with them hopefully you can use some of these methods in the kitchen going forward until then happy cracking [Music]

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 2,880,991

Rating: 4.9043064 out of 5

Keywords: how to, nut, nuts, epicurious, open a coconut, open walnut, open raw almond, open pecan, open pili nut, open brazil nut, how to crack nuts, how to crack a nut, nutcracker, open a nut, open walnuts, open almonds, cracking nuts, expert nut cracker, open any nut, crack any nut, how to open nuts, how to open a nut, open every nut, crack every nut, epicurious nuts, epicurious crack every nut, how to crack every nut, epi how to crack every nut, method mastery

Id: vjcLnVeGY0Y

Length: 19min 38sec (1178 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 26 2020