subject: Tips On Cooking With Nuts [print this page] Tips On Cooking With Nuts Tips On Cooking With Nuts
Nearly all cooks love nuts. In fact, nuts have become such a natural ingredient in our food products that it is hard to imagine the prospect of having to do without them in our cooking and baking. But, in order to use them to best effect, it is good to keep certain food facts in mind.
Some foods are more susceptible to odor transfers than others. Usually, this is a trait of foods that are high in fat. Because of their fat contents, nuts easily take on the odors of foods that surround them. For example, if you have them uncovered in your refrigerator with meats, they will gradually take on the odors of those meats. To avoid this, never leave refrigerated nuts uncovered. Place them either in a sealed glass container or wrap them in heavy plastic wrapping. Thin plastic is not enough as odors can easily pass through a thin layer of plastic.
When purchasing raw nuts, many cooks wonder if they should buy nuts shelled or un-shelled. Nuts will remain fresh longer in the shell than outside of the shell. So, if you are buying nuts in bulk and expect to store them for a period of over four months, consider buying the unshelled version. You will experience a bit more inconvenience when you get around to using them because they have to be shelled. But, on the other hand, there is less chance of them becoming rancid or going bad.
There are certain rules that good chefs usually follow when cooking with nuts. For one, they will always taste the particular nuts before they put them in their food. The reason is that, unlike many foods, when nuts are bad, they don't always show obvious signs of decay. But if you bite into a stale pecan or rancid walnut, you want to spit it out almost immediately. If you put that bitter pecan or rancid walnut into your foods, your dinner guests will have the same reaction as you, because the flavor of the nuts will carry over into the cooked dish. So taste first, and only then determine if they are good enough to use in your meal.
When you purchase your nuts, your first tore choice should be one with a high turnover of produce. Nuts are a perishable item and the longer they sit on the store shelves, the less time you have to store them at home.
As an example, assume that you are buying pecans from the small mom and pop grocery store in your neighborhood which has very little traffic. You could be purchasing pecans that have already been on the shelves for 4 months or longer. This means that they are almost at the end of their natural storage life when you buy them.
If, on the other hand, you buy those pecans from a large health food chain that sells thousands of pounds of nuts each month, you have a much better chance of getter fresh nuts which you can then store for a long while yourself.
