You have lots of hickory nuts and want to know how to shell hickory nuts. Trees in the ickory genus (Carya) are deciduous hardwoods found in Asia and North America. These trees have nuts encased in a very hard shell, but the nut meat is oily and rich-tasting, like pecans. In fact, ickory trees are related to pecan trees; however, they contain more calories and fat.
Native Americans have eaten hickory nuts for centuries, and they would pick them and store them in barrels. They’d mash them up and grind them to make delectable dishes. When you cook hickory nuts in boiling water, you’ll end up with a fatty porridge-like dish, but you can also just eat them raw right out of the shell.
The greatest challenge in eating these delectable, meaty nuts is the difficulty in cracking open their shells. So, learning know how to shell hickory nuts is important. You may bang and pound on them fruitless if you don’t strike them precisely on the spot. Once you’ve mastered how to loosen a nut from its shell, cracking hickory nuts will be easy as one two three.
How to Shell Hickory Nuts
It won’t necessarily break open if you grab a hammer and start whaling on a hickory nut. You must hit it in the correct location, and it will split right open to reveal the meat within.
The shell has a membrane that serves as a partition. The septum is the name given to this structure. When you strike the shell near the stem, the impact travels up the shell and causes it to break apart.
Using a hammer and stone, bash the shell until it cracks then pry open with a nut pick. Make sure to have a bowl ready to catch any falling bits.
To crack hickory nuts, place them on a flat surface like a stone or brick. Near the stem, use a hammer to hit the nut. Use the pick to free the meat from the shell and drop it in a bowl. Once you finish cracking all of the nuts, put the bowl of fresh hickory nut meats in your fridge or freezer.
How to Shell Hickory Nuts: Types of Hickory Nuts
Hickory nuts come from the Carya genus of hickory trees, and they are the fruit that these trees produce. The walnut tree and pecan tree are also part of this family. Hickory nuts have hard shells and are encased in greenish brown husks when they fall off the hickory nut trees.
Hickory nuts are edible, but only a few varieties are palatable. The edible items are delectable and may be used in the same way as pecans and walnuts. Hickory nuts come from sweet or bitter trees, depending on their species. Before gathering hickory nut seeds for food, it is vital to identify the kind of tree from which they came.
Hickory trees take an absurd amount of time to mature, so if you’re hoping to have them on your land, be prepared to wait a few years. The best way to get hickories is by finding them in the wild. Some delicious types of edible hickory trees are the shagbark hickory tree (Carya Ovata) and the eastern United States Carya cordiformis. The former gets its namesake from its large strips of peeling bark that make it look “shaggy”. Additionally, this type of hickory has green husks that fall off during autumn.
The pecan tree, shellbark hickory, sand hickory, mockernut, and red hickory are other hickories with delectable nuts. They all have pecans that are sweet and taste similar to them.
Hickories are a great source of food for animals, but they’re unpalatable. The bitternut hickory tree, pignut hickory, and water hickory are the three examples. People should rather consume the sweeter variety since deer, squirrels, and birds love to eat these hickory nuts.
How to Shell Hickory Nuts: How to Use Hickory Nuts
Hickory nuts are perfect for any dish that asks for pecans, walnuts, or other kinds of nuts. Set some time aside to shell them before adding them to your baking or cooking–it’ll be worth it in the end!
Each nut has a teeny-tiny meat, so you’ll need a lot of it and measure it in a cup. They’re small enough to mash without much effort, but if you want to, you can do so.
There are many recipes that you can enhance by adding hickory nuts, for example chocolate chip cookies or banana bread. You can also use them as a replacement for pecans or walnuts in other recipes. Aside from baking, they’re great in salads and rice dishes too. And once you get them out of the shell, the sky’s the limit!
How to Shell Hickory Nuts- Bottom Line
How to shell hickory nuts? Hickory nuts are a great source of food that can be used in many recipes. They have a hard shell, so you must bash them with a hammer to crack them open. Be sure to have a bowl ready to catch any falling bits. After you finish cracking all of the nuts, put the bowl of fresh hickory nut meats in your fridge or freezer. Then you can enjoy it during your free time in your happy place.
