Macadamia Nuts

The macadamia nuts are back at the farmers market.

Last year I bought some and made macadamia nut burgers. (You can read the recipe here.)

This year, I just admired them and passed on by.

Interestingly, this year the nuts look even more challenging than last year. They're being sold with the outer case still attached, although cracked open so you can see the nut's hard brown inner shell.

That hard inner shell is what it takes a hammer to crack. You can read about my challenges with them here. (This is why this year I just passed on by.)

It's a lot of work for a handful of nuts.

But I love seeing them at the market, and I know that if I ever want to eat macadamia nuts, this is how I'll buy them.

Macadamia Nut Burgers

Sometimes a burger hits the spot.

In this case, a nut burger.

When my grandmother was a vegetarian in 1960s England, you could buy nut rissoles in a tin. I guess they were early gardenburgers, before refrigeration was as reliable as it is today.

These macadamia nut burgers we ate the other night are nothing like the hockey puck called a gardenburger. (I've never seen a nut rissole so I can't compare them.)

They were crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, with texture from the nuts and celery.

We ate them with baked sweet potato fries and coleslaw - no buns. It was high protein fast food with a healthy twist.

I adapted the recipe from Rose Eliot's peanut burgers in her book The Complete Vegetarian Cuisine. It contains marmite, a staple of British school children and vegetarians (excellent source of B vitamins and a rich flavor similar to beef broth). You can buy it locally at Lucky Baldwin's Pub in Old Pasadena (along with other essentials like Branston pickle and Bird's custard powder).

The burgers will be good even without the marmite. You might add a little extra soy sauce if you like.

Macadamia Nut Burgers
3 tbsp butter or olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 tbsp flour
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp marmite
1 cup roasted salted cashews
1/2 cup macadamia nuts
2/3 cup fresh whole wheat breadcrumbs
salt and pepper
extra breadcrumbs for coating
oil to coat the frypan

Grind the nuts fairly finely in a food processor or blender. Some large-ish bits are fine. Don't over-pulverize them and turn them to nut butter.

(You can also grind 1-2 slices of whole wheat bread to make the fresh breadcrumbs.)

Melt the butter or olive oil in a large saucepan and sauté the onion and celery until soft, about 10 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook another 1-2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup water and stir until thickened. Remove from the heat and stir in the soy sauce, marmite, nuts and fresh breadcrumbs.

Let the mixture cool until it's easy to handle, and then form 4 burgers about 1/3 inch thick. Press them together well, then pat dry breadcrumbs onto the top, turn them over, and pat more breadcrumbs on the other side. (The breadcrumbs will crisp up in the frypan and make a crunchy exterior.)

Warm the frypan over medium heat. Pour in enough oil to just cover the bottom of the pan. Cook the burgers about 5 minutes on each side, until browned and crisp.

Drain on paper towels, then serve hot.

Serves 4.

(Store the leftovers in the fridge. They reheat well in the toaster oven. The uncooked burgers will last a few days in the fridge. Cook as needed.)

Macadamia nuts

I was strolling through the Hollywood Farmers Market a few weeks ago when I was brought up short by small boxes of round wooden things. They were macadamia nuts - in the shell.

I had never seen the whole nuts before, so of course I had to bring some home. They're organic macadamias grown near San Diego.

I suggested to Larry that he crack a few so we could try them.

Two nut crackers and much grunting and cussing later, Larry was on wikipedia searching for macadamia-opening strategies. Place the nutcracker on the round spot, crack them on the little line - whatever he tried, it didn't work. After much struggle he shared one shelled macadamia nut with me and mum. It was very good, but I can see why they're usually sold without the shells.

The following week I stopped at the stall where I'd bought the nuts to ask how they opened them.

It turns out the secret trick is to wrap a nut in an old towel and tap it with a hammer.

So yesterday I sat on the concrete floor of our garage with an old towel, a hammer, and the macadamia nuts. Tap is a relative term - some nuts require more bashing than others. And the towel is essential, not just to soften the blow from the hammer, but to contain the nut shells. They are hard and thick and could definitely do damage.

I managed to remove all the nuts from their shells without harming me or the floor. Some of the nuts split in half, but a remarkable number stayed whole and just popped out of the shell. The towel, however, got holes in it from the broken edges of the nutshells. Did I mention they're hard?

Now I have a half cup of shelled macadamia nuts. What to do with them?

I confess to not having eaten many macadamia nuts in my life. The main recipe I know is for white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, which seems a little like overkill, especially after the holidays.
So instead I'll be using them in Rose Eliot's recipe for nut burgers. I'll let you know how they turn out.