September 12 in Rus' was considered Nut Day. By this time, the kernel is finally filled with all nutrients and the shell becomes ruddy. The harvesting of nuts begins. The most exquisite delicacy is roasted nuts. This is not only tasty, but also the most healthy and nutritious product.

Harvesting nuts. What does "hot nut" mean?

It’s not just people who start collecting nuts in the fall. In the forest you can only hear rustling noises - mice dragging nuts into their holes, or a squirrel in the trees choosing the ripest fruit. In Rus', nuts found in nuts were sold at a special price, were considered the most expensive, and were called “mouse nuts.” The squirrel also chooses a nut in its own way: it hits the branches with its paw and watches which one stops swinging last, from which it collects the ripest and most delicious nuts.

Roasted nuts were considered the most delicious dish in Rus'. When fried in a cast iron frying pan, the fruits become juicier and easier to crack. Master carvers made special clickers - figurines in the form of soldiers and boyars. You put a nut in his mouth, press the handle on the back - the peeled kernels will fall straight into his hand. The nutritional value of nuts has long been known to everyone. They contain 70% fat, proteins, carbohydrates, and vitamins.

Pine nut

In nature, on the entire Earth, you will not find a more powerful healer than cedar. In terms of his strength, he has no equal. Avicenna once recommended using the husk for treatment and, as a general strengthening and cleansing agent for the body, he recommended consuming 1 spoon of kernels daily with light wine or honey. Siberian health is not just empty words. It is Siberians who highly value the natural healer - Father Cedar. Local residents make “vegetable cream” from nuts, the consumption of which stimulates the absorption of fatty substances and regulates the functioning of the thyroid gland and internal organs. Walnut hulls are also widely used in folk medicine. Pine nuts are considered the most expensive on the market. Its nutritional value is very high. The protein contained in pine nuts is digested by our body much easier and faster than that found in walnuts and peanuts. Residents of Siberia can only envy that roasted pine nuts are considered a familiar delicacy for them; it is not for nothing that they call it the best gift and are always brought from these places to friends and acquaintances.

Useful properties of pine nuts

The Siberian nut in its kernel contains up to 16% protein, 60% drying oil, starch, sugar, pentosans, fiber, vitamin C, and various minerals. The kernels can be eaten raw. Some people prefer roasted nuts; their taste is richer and the husks are easier to remove. The physiological value of protein is very high, it contains eighteen amino acids, 70% of which are considered essential. The nut protein contains so much methionine, lysine, tryptophan, and cystine that it exceeds the composition of cow's milk protein. Cedar oil contains a large amount of tocopherols - fat-soluble vitamins and fatty acids that have antioxidant activity. In terms of tocopherol content, it exceeds walnut by 1.5 times, and peanut by 5 times. It contains 3 times more essential fatty acids than peanut oil, and 1.5 times more than sunflower oil. There is a record amount of phosphate phosphorus, so necessary for our body, in cedar oil; there is not so much in any other product.

How to cook nuts

Boiled pine nuts have a delicate taste, and the husk becomes much softer, making it easier to get the kernel. They are prepared for future use in their pure form, since they do not last long in the cones. In the taiga, Siberians build hand mills where cones are crushed and then sifted.

The roasted nut has a very hard shell, so some people like to cook it. To do this, you need to take as many nuts as you plan to eat. Pour them into a saucepan, add water and cook for 15-20 minutes. The nuts become soft, it is better to split them crosswise, so the kernel does not wrinkle and remains intact.

To make the nuts easy to remove from the cone, you can boil them. You just need to have a separate saucepan for these purposes (it’s unlikely that the cedar resin can be washed off the walls). The cones take a long time to cook - two hours. Then the fruits are easily removed. Many people prefer to roast the nuts in the oven.

How to roast nuts

Let us tell those who prefer roasted nuts how to prepare such a delicacy: you can fry the nuts both in a frying pan and in the oven. Pour a thin layer into the pan; no need to add oil. Stir constantly. The process lasts 10-15 minutes. As soon as you hear a crackling sound, you can try it. At the end of frying, sprinkle a little water (this will make the shell softer) and cover with a towel. If you are frying in the oven, first heat the oven, then place a baking sheet on which the nuts are poured in an even layer. Heat for 10 minutes, then turn off the heat and leave to cool. For softness, you can also sprinkle with water at the end of frying.

Some tips on how to prick:

Pre-calcined nuts are filled with water for a while: the shell becomes softer and more pliable.
Place whole cones in the stove or oven. The nuts acquire a special aroma and are then easier to peel.
In Buryatia, nuts are poured with a glass of boiling water for 15 minutes. After this, they split it with their teeth from the blunt side of the fruit.
You can use pliers that have a notch on the lips. It is just a little smaller in size than a nut and cracks it easily.

Pine nuts have practically no contraindications. But sometimes, with excessive consumption, you can feel a disturbance in the sense of taste, bitter. These disturbances go away on their own after a few days.

Harvesting nuts. What does "hot nut" mean?

It’s not just people who start collecting nuts in the fall. In the forest you can only hear rustling noises - mice carrying nuts into their holes, or a squirrel in the trees choosing the ripest fruit. In Rus', nuts found in a mouse hole were sold at a special price, were considered the most expensive, and were called “mouse nuts.” The squirrel also chooses a nut in its own way: it hits the branches with its paw and watches which one stops swinging last, from which it collects the ripest and most delicious nuts.

Pine nut

In nature, on the entire Earth, you will not find a more powerful healer than cedar. In terms of his strength, he has no equal. Avicenna once recommended using the husk and kernel of pine nuts for treatment. As a general strengthening and cleansing agent for the body, he recommended consuming 1 spoon of kernels daily with light wine or honey. Siberian health is not just empty words. It is Siberians who highly value the natural healer - Father Cedar. Local residents make “vegetable cream” from nuts, the consumption of which stimulates the absorption of fatty substances and regulates the functioning of the thyroid gland and internal organs. Walnut hulls are also widely used in folk medicine. Pine nuts are considered the most expensive on the market. Its nutritional value is very high. The protein contained in pine nuts is digested by our body much easier and faster than that contained in the same walnuts, almonds and peanuts. Residents of Siberia can only envy that roasted pine nuts are considered a familiar delicacy for them; it is not for nothing that they call it the best gift and are always brought from these places to friends and acquaintances.

Useful properties of pine nuts

The Siberian nut in its kernel contains up to 16% protein, 60% drying oil, starch, sugar, pentosans, fiber, vitamin C, and various minerals. The kernels can be eaten raw. Some people prefer roasted nuts; their taste is richer and the husks are easier to remove. The physiological value of protein is very high, it contains eighteen amino acids, 70% of which are considered essential. The nut protein contains so much methionine, lysine, tryptophan, and cystine that it exceeds the composition of cow's milk protein. Cedar oil contains a large amount of tocopherols - fat-soluble vitamins and fatty acids that have antioxidant activity. In terms of tocopherol content, cedar oil is 1.5 times higher than walnut oil, and peanut oil is 5 times higher. It contains 3 times more essential fatty acids than peanut oil, and 1.5 times more than sunflower oil. There is a record amount of phosphate phosphorus, so necessary for our body, in cedar oil; there is not so much in any other product.

How to cook nuts

To make the nuts easy to remove from the cone, you can boil them. You just need to have a separate saucepan for these purposes (it’s unlikely that the cedar resin can be washed off the walls). The cones take a long time to cook—two hours. Then the fruits are easily removed. Many people prefer to roast the nuts in the oven.

How to roast nuts

Some tips on how to crack pine nuts:

Pre-calcined nuts are filled with water for a while: the shell becomes softer and more pliable.
Place whole cones in the stove or oven. The nuts acquire a special aroma and are then easier to peel.
In Buryatia, nuts are poured with a glass of boiling water for 15 minutes. After this, they split it with their teeth from the blunt side of the fruit.
You can use pliers that have a notch on the lips. It is just a little smaller in size than a nut and cracks it easily.

Pine nuts have practically no contraindications. But sometimes, with excessive consumption, you can feel a disturbance in the sense of taste, a bitter, metallic taste in the mouth. These disturbances go away on their own within a few days.

The collected hazelnuts are cleaned of stipules and laid out to dry in 1-2 layers on paper in a well-ventilated area. Raw hazelnuts placed in containers will become moldy and disappear. Dry hazel nuts should tap when shaken and crack well. Today we will give you recipes for hazelnut dishes.

Hazelnut - cooking recipes

Roasted Hazelnuts Recipe

Nuts without stipules are roasted in a well-heated frying pan or in the oven at a temperature of 100-110°C. When the nuts begin to crack, and when the shell is opened, a toasted nut is visible, acquiring a specific taste, the process is completed. These nuts are used to make flour, which is used for making confectionery and in dietary nutrition.

Hazel-based nut coffee - recipe

Flour from roasted nuts is mixed with ground coffee in a ratio of 1:5, sugar is added to taste and poured with cold water in a Turk. Bring to a boil and remove from heat when a head of foam appears.

Cake "Hedgehog" - a recipe based on hazelnuts

Beat 3 eggs, 0.5 cups of sugar and 0.5 cups of flour, pour into a greased frying pan and bake the crust. Beat the same portion again and bake the second cake. From the first cake, cut out the base for the hedgehog in the form of a large drop, cut the rest into cubes. Also cut the second cake into even cubes. Beat a can of boiled condensed milk with 250 g of butter, set aside a little, and mix the rest with pieces of biscuit. Add the crushed nuts, mix everything and place in a heap on the base (from the sharp edge of the drop below, where wider - above). Cover everything with the reserved cream. Stick peeled sunflower seeds on top - in the form of needles - and sprinkle everything on top with poppy seeds. The hedgehog's nose and eyes are made from whole hazelnut grains.

Recipe for waffle cake with praline and hazel filling

Prepare butter cream from 200 g butter and 300 g condensed milk. Peel the nuts from their shells, fry them in a frying pan and remove the husks by rubbing them between your palms. Mix 2 tbsp. l. nuts with 2 tbsp. l. sugar, place in a saucepan and heat, stirring vigorously, until the sugar dissolves. Place the hot mixture on a plate and cool. Break into pieces in a mortar and grind in a coffee grinder or pass through a meat grinder. Add 1 tbsp. l. cocoa and mix with the prepared butter cream. Layer the finished wafer cakes (8-10 pcs.) with filling, pour melted chocolate on top of the cake, to which pieces of nuts have been added. To prevent the chocolate from dulling, it is slightly heated, mixed with nuts and immediately applied to the surface.

Banana dessert with hazelnuts - recipe

In a mixer, beat a glass of yogurt, pieces of 3 ripe bananas and a third of a glass of chopped hazelnuts. Place the cooled mixture into bowls, sprinkle with grated nuts and garnish with fruit.

Recipe for “Nuts” cakes with hazelnuts

Prepare the dough by pouring flour into boiling water, stirring the mixture intensively over heat. Remove the mixture from heat and cool to 70°C. Then beat in the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously with a spatula or fork, but without beating. Place walnut-sized lumps of dough on a baking sheet greased with a very thin layer of fat, dipping a spoon into a glass of cold water before each serving. Bake the custard products at 200°C and cool. Cut each one at the base and add cream made from 1 can of condensed milk, a stick of butter and 0.5 cups of grated nuts. Spread the remaining cream on top and sprinkle with grated nuts.

Pumpernickel with hazelnuts - recipes

Grind 100 g butter with 200 g sugar and 1 tsp. cinnamon, then gradually pour in the eggs, whisking the mixture. When the mixture turns white, add nuts A cup, coarsely ground) and 500 g of flour, mix thoroughly and roll into a thick rope. Bake for 20 minutes at 180°C, remove and cut into pieces. Serve sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Hazelnut is not only tasty, but also healthy. Now you know the recipe for hazelnut dishes, and you can please your loved ones with not only tasty, but also healthy food.

Healing properties of food plants

Nut plants

Common hazelnut

Man has used hazel fruits for food since ancient times.

Hazel culture originally originated on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. The Circassians bred it already in the 3rd-4th centuries. BC. From here he came to the Mediterranean countries.

Later, hazel culture spread to other European countries.

Centuries of folk selection have led to the creation of numerous valuable varieties of this plant.

Hazel is also called hazel.

This is a branched large shrub of the birch family with broadly oval leaves, dioecious flowers and fruits - single-seeded nuts.

The nuts come in a variety of shapes, have smooth brown shells and delicious, oily seeds. It blooms in April, the fruits ripen in September.

In Russia, wild hazel is currently found in forests, ravines, and mountains throughout the European part of the country (with the exception of the northern regions) and in the Caucasus.

We also have other types of wild hazelnuts, the fruits of which are used for food: bear hazel, Georgian hazel, Colchis hazel, Pontic hazel and Imeretian hazel (grow in different regions of the Caucasus), variegated hazel (found in Siberia and Primorye), Manchurian hazel (found in the Far East).

Since the wild hazel occupies large areas and has significant productivity, its cultivation has not yet become widespread.

Relatively small industrial cultivation of various varieties is concentrated mainly in the North Caucasus, Transcaucasia, Central Asia, Crimea, Moldova, Ukraine and the central regions of Russia.

Soviet breeders have developed many hazel varieties, including those that are promising for cultivation in the northern regions of the country.

The nutritional value of hazel seeds is enormous.

They contain about 70% non-drying fatty oil, 15-16% proteins, 3.28% fiber, mineral salts, vitamin B1.

The oil squeezed out of them has a good taste and is easily absorbed by the body. It is eaten and also used for industrial purposes.

The cake remaining after squeezing the oil is used to make halva.

The consumption of nuts, fresh or roasted, is widespread.

Roasted nuts are very tasty; They are usually calcined in ovens at a temperature of about 110°C, as a result of which the nuts acquire a peculiar flavor.

Walnut kernels are valuable raw materials for the food industry. They are used along with almonds in the manufacture of chocolate, sweets, cakes, pastries and other confectionery products.

Light and beautiful hazel wood is used for carpentry and turning.

The tannins found in the bark can be used in the tanning industry.

In folk medicine, nuts are often used against urolithiasis, and nuts with honey are used for rheumatism, anemia and as a general tonic.

Oil squeezed from hazel grains mixed with egg whites is used in household medicine to treat burns.

This oil is also lubricated on the head to strengthen the hair. Sometimes it is taken against worms (roundworms).

In Georgia, nuts are sometimes used as a carminative, and also to improve milk flow in nursing women.

In Azerbaijan, burnt dry hazelnuts are used to color eyebrows and eyelashes.

Hazel leaves and bark are also used medicinally. The leaves contain vitamin C (up to 200 mg%), essential oil, which has a vasoconstrictor effect, the glycoside myricitroside; in the bark - essential oil, tannins and dyes, lignoceryl alcohol, betulin.

An infusion of hazel leaves and bark (a tablespoon of crushed raw material per glass of boiling water) is recommended to drink 1/3-1/4 cup 3-4 times a day before meals for varicose veins, phlebitis and periphlebitis, trophic leg ulcers and capillary hemorrhages.

A decoction of the leaves is recommended to be taken for prostate hypertrophy.

The preparation “L-2 Lesovaya” is obtained from hazel by dry distillation, consisting of two fractions: water and resin.

In medical practice, this drug is used to treat neurodermatitis, eczema, athlete's foot and limited streptococcal skin lesions.

This plant has many names- water or devil's nut, bagel, horned nut, water chestnut, chilim, stone, and also roasted nut. Chilim is listed in the Red Book of our country. Its range has shrunk even further in recent decades. There are many reasons for this: there is pollution and shallowing of water bodies, excessive harvesting of fruits, the use of leaves for livestock feed (this is completely barbaric), the destruction of plants by muskrats, who really liked it (until the 30s of the last century, this animal was not in Europe- it was brought here from North America), damage to its plantings by nets and when clearing reservoirs.

In general, this aquatic plant has a very wide, although fragmented, geographical range, distributed in many countries of the world from the tropics to the temperate zone. It grows in India, China, Japan, throughout southeast Africa, throughout southern and central Europe, the Caucasus, the middle and southern Volga region, Krasnodar region, southern Siberia, the Far East, and has been introduced into North America and Australia. To the north it reaches the northern borders of Belarus and the southeast of the Pskov region, where it is distributed in the upper reaches of the Lovat River, approximately 30-50 km south of the city of Velikiye Luki, on lakes Vorokhoby and Pylets, as well as in adjacent rivers and other reservoirs . It is found very rarely, although sometimes in large thickets.

The nut currently does not grow in more northern regions, but archaeological excavations show that in not so distant times it was quite widespread in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Baltic states and a significant part of the North-West of our country. The disappearance of chilim in these regions was caused by the above-mentioned reasons (primarily, of course, man is to blame- the nut was simply “eaten”), as well as by temporary cooling in past centuries. But if it grew here before, then it is likely that it can be reintroduced, i.e. spread again in these areas. Moreover, as the experience of more southern countries shows, water chestnut lends itself well to cultivation and can become a very promising crop. So, even in the wild state, in the Volga delta it produces up to 4 tons of fruits from 1 hectare of water surface, and from cultivated areas the yield should undoubtedly be much higher, this is confirmed by data on its cultivation in India, China and other countries.

water chestnut- an annual plant that grows in various reservoirs at depths from 0.3 to 1.0 m. It is thermophilic and germinates only at water temperatures not lower than 10...12°C. Drupes, colloquially nuts, up to 3 cm long, consist of a core enclosed in a dark hard shell, on which, depending on the subspecies, there are from one to four spines (ours has exactly 4) of various shapes- straight, curved, twisted, etc. When sprouting from the shell, first a long, arcuately growing embryonic root appears, then a thin long stem, and on it- underwater thread-like leaves, which, however, quickly die off. Instead, feathery, leaf-like, chlorophyll-containing roots grow. In addition to them, ordinary brown thread-like roots are also formed on the stem, with which the plant is attached to the ground. And on the surface of the water, rosettes of dense, glossy floating leaves of a regular diamond shape with swollen, air-filled petioles develop. Funnel-shaped flowers with four sepals, four white petals (8-10 mm in diameter) and the same number of stamens arise from their base and bloom at the end of May. After fertilization (mostly self-pollination), they drop into the water, where the fruits grow and ripen.

Each plant usually bears 10-15 “nuts”. The entire plant is held by last year's nut and feeding roots as if at an anchor, however, when the water rises, it can break away from the ground together with them and swim to a new place, where it is anchored again.

In autumn, the leaves and stems first turn purplish-red and then die, causing the fruits to fall to the bottom, anchored there by thorns. They are collected shortly before- in mid-September. When taken out of the water, they quickly lose their germination capacity, but they can survive in bottom sediments for 10, and according to some literary sources, even 50 years without losing their ability to germinate. The water chestnut is most likely spread from pond to pond by large wild waterfowl (geese and ducks), in whose stomachs its undigested fruits have been repeatedly found.

Inside each nut is a tasty and highly nutritious white seed containing 15% protein, 7.5% fat, 52% starch, 3% sugar and 22.5% water. The taste of the fruit is very similar to the European chestnut, which is why chilim is sometimes called “water chestnut”. Nuts can be eaten fresh, boiled, fried, with salt and pepper; prepare various culinary products from them, cook soup, use them to prepare various sauces. In ancient times, their kernels were crushed into cereals and ground into flour, from which they baked bread that tasted like wheat.

In the recent past, when there was still quite a lot of rogulnik, medicines were made from it to treat atherosclerosis- trapazide, and in folk medicine it was used as an effective remedy for dysentery and other diseases. In addition, water chestnut rosettes are very decorative and can decorate any backyard pond.

I really want to hope that there will be people who can not only protect and preserve, but also spread the water chestnut much wider than its current range, and perhaps even cultivate it. It's a shame that in our country it has become a rarity, while in China there is a whole technology for its cultivation.- there the nut was domesticated, varieties with large seeds and thin shells without thorns were bred.

You can try to bring seeds for planting from the Volga region, where in some places significant thickets of it are still preserved, in vessels with water or wrapped in damp moss, etc. But it is much better to plant, although it is very difficult to obtain, planting material from the population of the Pskov region (you can from Northern Belarus). In this case, there will be a much greater chance that introduced plants will easily take root. It must be taken into account that swimming in places where a lot of ragulina grows is unsafe- You can injure your feet on sharp thorns. For the same reason, it should not be planted in places where people bathe in large numbers.

V. Starostin , candidate of agricultural sciences sciences

Other publications by Starostin V.A. look at his personal page

Look for nut planting material in the section "Nurseries. Seedlings"