Nut Crackers
Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2016 11:31 pm
I like nuts as a snack. All kinds. My family gives me sacks of mixed nuts in the shell as a gift for various special occasions. Peanuts are good, but quickly boring.
Pistachios are nice and tasty, but expensive. Those two are easily shelled without tools But the rest! I grew up with Black Walnuts as a common activity to keep neighborhood kids busy and relatively harmless--if you ignored the stains. The tool of choice there was a flat rock, an ordinary carpenter's roughing hammer, and a small nail. Black walnuts are not that common in the grocery store. I love the flavor, specially in baking. It is the best nut for that purpose. Use black walnuts instead in a pecan pie recipe. Wonderful. But the nut is hard to crack and the edible bits come out in very small pieces.
So I have tried various nut crackers and they all seem over elaborate (the things made like a variation of a car bumper jack, specially for black walnuts for example) or take too much muscle, or tend to smash everything with too much leverage.
This became important when my son got a job in Oklahoma and he started sending me big sacks of pecans, that cost him less than a pound of the things in my local grocery store. Now it seems the ideal solution:
A not-too-large Channel-Lock pliers.
It does the job, in a controlled fashion for easy almond and english walnuts, or tough Brazil nuts, and all the stuff in between. Admit I have not tried it on Black Walnuts. For those, I revert to my childhood favorite.
snailgate
Pistachios are nice and tasty, but expensive. Those two are easily shelled without tools But the rest! I grew up with Black Walnuts as a common activity to keep neighborhood kids busy and relatively harmless--if you ignored the stains. The tool of choice there was a flat rock, an ordinary carpenter's roughing hammer, and a small nail. Black walnuts are not that common in the grocery store. I love the flavor, specially in baking. It is the best nut for that purpose. Use black walnuts instead in a pecan pie recipe. Wonderful. But the nut is hard to crack and the edible bits come out in very small pieces.
So I have tried various nut crackers and they all seem over elaborate (the things made like a variation of a car bumper jack, specially for black walnuts for example) or take too much muscle, or tend to smash everything with too much leverage.
This became important when my son got a job in Oklahoma and he started sending me big sacks of pecans, that cost him less than a pound of the things in my local grocery store. Now it seems the ideal solution:
A not-too-large Channel-Lock pliers.
It does the job, in a controlled fashion for easy almond and english walnuts, or tough Brazil nuts, and all the stuff in between. Admit I have not tried it on Black Walnuts. For those, I revert to my childhood favorite.
snailgate
