Walnuts

[Toddy]

To make Walnut 'Ink'

First find a pot you don't mind staining. The ink can stain so strongly that the pot will not ever look clean again.

Using that pot as a gauge, figure out how many pieces of the walnut hulls you can easily get into it while leaving about 3cms clear at the top.
Fill up with hot water, and bring the pot slowly up to a simmer (put a lid on it ! the mess stains the cooker too )
Leave the pot gently simmering for a good hour, and then turn off the heat and let it sit to cool down. Leave the hulls in the water for at least 12 hours, but I managed to be busy enough that I put the pot outside and it sat for three days and it worked fine. It's a no rush kind of ink making.

Strain the liquid into a clean jar (there's a knack to this. If you use a sieve then that'll get stained too, and it won't remove all the fine gritty pieces of hull, but if you can find a bit of cloth, like an old t-shirt and line the jar with that then you can pour the liquid off into the jar, like draining spuds, and the cloth will catch the fine debris. Mind and wear gloves, otherwise your hands will be stained too.)

At this stage, the ink can be used with a brush, and it makes rather good sepia type watercolours, but it's not a lot of use with a pen.
Take a little gum arabic, and dissolve it in a very little amount of hot water, use the original already stained pot. Add some of the inky liquid and stir. It'll thicken up slowly, but if you add a little heat to it, it'll happen more quickly. Mind that if you increase the temperature of a reaction by 10degrees, you cut the time of the reaction in half. It works with ink making

You can increase the potency of the ink by adding either a little iron water (crush an iron tablet in half a litre of hot water) or using a little copper water (put some small offcuts of copper central heating pipe into vinegar, and it'll turn a beautiful turquoise blue or add the copper to ammonia and it'll give a beautiful rich inkblue) but, and it's a pay attention but, if your iron is too strong, it will eventually eat it's way through the paper you write on, and the copper liquid is toxic. Do not ingest or dispose of without a lot of forethought.
Either way, the metals will make the already dark walnut ink into a rich black colour.......that stains so completely that it ruins clothing and leaves skin so stained that it takes an awful long while to remove, basically until you lose that top layer of skin.
It's a very good stain for wood though, which can be hard to obtain from most natural dyes.

M

 

[erehwon]

I was told that that was the way to harvest them but I don't have a walnut tree. Lovely to have them growing in your garden.
Do the shells 'spatter' when used on the fire ?

No the shells burn well and give out a lot of heat, however the complete walnut is a totally different story, the moisture inside the shell can make them act like popcorn and explode, you could always throw a couple on an outside fire and watch them go.........from a distance

 

[Toddy]

Sounds like the original firecracker

On that note....I once put chestnuts into the oven to roast, and didn't score their bases firmly enough. They exploded in the oven leaving the most amazing mess. Funnily enough it smelled of burnt spuds.

M

 

[Robson Valley]

Probably need a steam hole in each walnut shell.
Just back to the house. Walnut halves were $4.50/lb, pecan halves were $16.50/lb.
Do nothing until back home. I'll salt and roast some of each. My guts like that.

Probably several hours of 4x4 in wet snow on the twisty highway tomorrow.
The plow crews are magicians. I just get in behind one and slow down!

 

[Robson Valley]

Considering the economy of walnuts, curried walnuts turned out far better than I expected.
I can't stand walnuts in baked goods of any kind. Never have. This is the exception to the rule:
Recipe-wise, they are an exact substitute for the pecans.

You need a sheet pan for the oven and a deep pot & prep spoon for the stove top.
Measure everything first. The process is really quick and the nuts burn if you have to stop
and measure ingredients.

Preheat the oven, 350F max.

- 2 tbsp veg oil in the pot
- 3-4C walnut meat pieces
- 1 tbsp cumin seed and mustard seed in a cup
- 1-2 tbsp curry powder of your choice in another cup
- 1 tsp+ plain fine salt
- open bottle of light soya sauce.

> Start the pot on medium high heat with the oil and a few mustard seeds.
> When they start to sizzle, add all the cumin and mustard seed, stir to cook for a minute.
> When the mustard seeds begin to pop, add all the nuts and all the curry powder, stir non-stop.
> After a few minutes of stirring, sprinkle the salt in and wash liberally with soya sauce, stir non-stop.
> As it dries, the soya sauce is the glue for the seeds and curry on the nuts.
> Off the heat, spread the gooey nuts all over the sheet pan and into the oven for 8 minutes by the clock.
Any more and they burn.

I'll know better for next time: I need far more bulk walnut!

 

[Toddy]

Sounds interesting

I like date and walnut loaf though, especially with icing on the top

 

[Robson Valley]

This is a quickie = 15 - 20 minutes and it is done.
I just got a new recipe from Chef Alton Brown (Eat Your Science., etc)
which is chipotle paprika and orange zest among other things.
Typically American, there's a huge shot of sugar at the end. Not.