Pickled Walnuts Recipe - How to Make Pickled Walnuts | Hank Shaw (2024)

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Pickled Walnuts Recipe - How to Make Pickled Walnuts | Hank Shaw? ›

Properly gloved, stab each walnut with a fork in several places; this helps the brine penetrate. Submerge the walnuts in the brine and let them ferment for 8 days at room temperature. Remove the walnuts and put them on a baking sheet and leave them outside in the sun for a day, until they turn uniformly black.

The brine time helps with preservation and removes some of the bitterness in the unripe walnuts.

Cover the walnuts in brine and leave to ferment for 8 days at room temperature. Use a weight to ensure the walnuts stay submerged in the brine.

Pickled walnuts can be bought in the supermarkets, but it's straightforward to make your own. Once the walnuts are fully pickled they will be very soft and can be sliced or used whole.

You can put them next to meats; lovely with a steak; they're great with terrines. They love mustard, vinaigrettes, purple-sprouting broccoli. I like them in a beetroot salad; to a cold beetroot soup I might add a bit of pickled walnut liquor. Very thinly sliced and put in a ham, cheese and watercress sandwich.

Prepare it

Walnuts in their shells can be opened using a nut cracker. To avoid damaging the nut inside, squeeze the shell gently until it cracks, then extract the nut - there are lots of different nut crackers available, so find one that's easy for you to use.

Shruti Bharadwaj, Senior Clinical Dietician, Narayana Hrudayalaya says soaking walnuts helps improve their digestibility and also remove phytic acid and tannin. "Soaking can also help prevent indigestion as it helps reduce gas forming compounds. It also reduces polyphenols and increase nutrient availability.

If you're looking for a quick and tangy snack, pickling is the way to go. The acidic brine infuses the food with a sharp sourness within a relatively short period. If you're after a more nuanced and complex flavor, the natural fermentation process takes longer but results in a tanginess that is unique to each batch.

An easy way to remember the difference between the two despite their overlap is that pickling involves putting food into an acidic brine to produce a sour flavor, whereas fermenting gives food a sour flavor without any added acid. Pickling is often the least healthy choice in terms of these two foods.

Properly gloved, stab each walnut with a fork in several places; this helps the brine penetrate. Submerge the walnuts in the brine and let them ferment for 8 days at room temperature. Remove the walnuts and put them on a baking sheet and leave them outside in the sun for a day, until they turn uniformly black.

Are pickled walnuts good? ›

A traditional English accompaniment to cold meats and blue cheeses, pickled walnuts have a buttery texture and sharp flavour with a hint of nuttiness that's curiously addictive.

Pickled walnuts (from English walnut, Juglans regia) are a traditional British delicacy. The Royal Horticultural Society even mentions them. Alys Fowler's book, The Thrifty Forager (2011), says the walnuts for pickling must be picked in early summer before they harden.

Nuts with higher fat content, like walnuts and pecans can also go rancid after a few months if stored at too warm a temperature. If you notice that your nuts have taken on a noticeably bitter, sour flavor, they may have entered this unfortunate phase.

A little background: pickled black walnuts are made from immature nuts before the shell develops inside the green hull. After several months in brine, they're sliced thin, and served with cheese and meats. The flavor is dark, spicy, and sharp. Most people compare it to A1 sauce and I think that's apt.

Top 5 Pairings

Although people enjoy a mix of sweet and savory flavors with walnuts, a sweet combination is most liked by all: (1) Dark Chocolate, (2) Sesame Cayenne, (3) Vanilla, (4) Sea Salt Caramel, (5) Coffee.

Place walnuts in boiling water for five minutes to remove bitter taste. Remove from water and drain, then run cold water over the walnuts.

They are a good source of fiber and magnesium, as well as vitamin E. Pickling walnuts will ensure that you receive all of these health benefits no matter what time of year, along with probiotics which are great for gut health.

"Soaked almonds and walnuts are healthier than having them raw, because the process of soaking makes them more digestible and more easily absorbed in the body. So, all the nutrients and vitamins that they have, almost doubled up in the bio availability of those vitamins, when they are consumed soaked.

Soaking walnuts can also reduce their bitterness. This makes them more palatable and enjoyable to eat, especially for those who may find the bitterness unpleasant. Soaking walnuts can soften them, making them easier to chew and digest.