Bunya Nut .... success!!

so i had to do a follow-up on my last post ....

you see, that dear friend who brought me the first cone decided that he could get his hands on a fresher ones and dropped one off after church on sunday ... why not see if this works?  up to the challenge?  heck yeah!  <g>

 it was significantly smaller than the last one .... and if i must say .... significantly tougher!  had to get hubby to do this one .... and he had to get two chisels and wedge them in and push them apart to get the nut split.

the mammoth effort!

after that i managed to get them out of their out green protective shell to reveal the inner hard shell ....

so we cracked one raw .... wanted to make sure it was good.  and if you have been wondering about a size comparison .... check this out.  a macadamia nut unshelled and a bunya nut .... shelled. ate this ... had a bit of a fibrous texture ... but was otherwise ok.

woa!  that's a big sucker!

next step is to try the cooking again.   now that we know we have a viable nut .... let's cook it like it says.  apparently this is when the flavour really starts to set in.

the nuts, cooked.

the next photo shows the three stages of the cooking and cracking.  not an easy process i have to say .... but got it down to about 30 seconds per nut!.  the secret seems to be to get a pair of bull nose pliers and use them to wedge into the top and to pull it apart, with the pliers, along the clear fault lines on the nut .... and then to use the pliers to pull the shell back .... at least half way.  then i got a small knife and pierced it and was able to pull the nuts out whole.

cooked, slimy nuts in a pile.  the one off to the bottom right
on the blue towel has had the slime removed (impossible
to get traction to open otherwise.  and the bowl has
the successfully shelled nuts in it!

what do they taste like?  waxy texture with a chestnut / potato starch nutty flavour.  i can see how they could sit around a campfire and eat these (another way to soften the shells, drop them in the fire and wait until they pop!) .... they are certainly meaty enuf!

and a picture tells the story.  roasted about a dozen of them and made a basil, garlic, lemon, parmesean  and bunya nut pesto .... and i reckon the verdict is really good!