Noxious Nocino

Remember those green walnuts I collected last year?  I was so excited by them that I started off a batch of pickled walnuts, and also some walnut liqueur - Nocino. 

Well, the moment of truth arrived... and, well, truth is the Nocino is vile!  I have to admit that my suspicions were raised when the previously beautiful jar of bright green nuts began turning first brown, then black.  Within weeks I had to push the jar to the back of the utility room counter because I really didn't want to be looking at it every day.  I was finding the sight of it faintly disturbing.

Here's the 'before' shot - gorgeous:

Aaaaaaaaand 'after':

Bleugh!  Note too the unappealing oily sheen on top of the liquid.  What's that all about?!  I guess the nuts contain natural oils which have leached out into the vodka.  But whatever, it's not looking appetising.

Now there are some things that look gross but taste nice.  Pickled walnuts for example.  These turned black too, but actually taste good - we've enjoyed some with those post-Christmas cold-meats-and-chips kind of meals and they're fine.  A few have needed discarding as the shells had obviously started to form, so they're a little unyielding in parts when you try to eat them (I'm really selling them aren't I!) but honestly, they do taste nice.  But the Nocino... no.

Here it is when poured out of the jar:

Black, oily, scummy - pass the shot glass!

I strained it into a bottle, and there it sits now, looking slightly accusingly at me...  good job I only used cheap vodka.

Even David Lebovitz, a fan of this liqueur, and from whose blog I took the recipe declines to drink this neat, but instead suggests pouring it over vanilla ice-cream as a dessert.  After a tentative sip of the Nocino, we decided that ice-cream might indeed make it more palatable so we tried it earlier this week.  Unfortunately, even the sweetness of vanilla ice-cream couldn't disguise the bitterness of the liqueur.

I think our best hope is to push the bottle to the back of the drinks cabinet and forget about it.  A bit of 'aging' might just improve it - and if not, in a few years' time I'll have no qualms about just pouring it down the sink.

Ah well, you win some, you lose some...

Ways with Walnuts

Remember those walnuts we spotted last week? Well, we decided that we had better do something with them, and fast. Apparently the squirrels are likely to get to them before we do if we wait for them to ripen, and this blog-post by David Lebovitz convinced me that the time was right to get picking.

I must admit that I was a little wary of making a whole litre of Nocino - not to mention the fact that there was no way I could find a large enough jar to do so (as it was I had to decant my preserved lemons out of the jar I used), so I ended up halving the recipe that David gives. But then of course we had, in our zeal for foraging, collected far too many walnuts...



A quick flick through a recent charity-shop-bargain recipe book - 'The National Trust Book of the Country Kitchen Store Cupboard' by Sara Paston-Williams - soon presented me with an ideal solution... Pickled Green Walnuts (recipe below). This is a lengthy process, but here are some of the more tender walnuts, pricked with a darning needle (note to self, wear gloves. These are worse than the cherries!) and floating in their first bath of brine. (Three days later the brine is black, and the nuts are beginning to blacken too... they look very sinister!)



But back to the Nocino...



It was a simple process, involving some careful chopping - some of the nut shells were beginning to form within the green casings - and then packing them into the jar along with the cinnamon stick, lemon peel, cloves, vanilla pod, sugar, and of course the 500ml of vodka.



And now all we have to do is wait. Already it's beginning to darken, but I think we will have to wait for Summer 2010 before it's ready to drink. I'm pretty excited by it.




Pickled Green Walnuts

The walnuts need to be soft enough to pass a knitting needle or skewer through them - I'd suggest picking in late June or early July. We used the softer ones for this pickle, and the ones that were beginning to harden (the shell starts to form at the end opposite the stalk) for the liqueur. Remember to wear rubber gloves unless you want to end up with the hands of a 60-a-day smoker...

1lb (450g) green walnuts
2pt (1.2 l) water
40z (125g) cooking salt
About 1pt (500ml) Pickling Vinegar (or simply use malt vinegar)

Prick walnuts lightly with a darning needle to allow them to be permeated by the pickle.

Make a strong brine mixing 1pt of water with 2oz of the salt to gether in a bowl. Add the walnuts to the brine and leave to stand for 3-4 days.

Drain, and mix up another brine solution using the remaining water and salt. Put the walnuts into this and leave for a further week.

Drain well, rinse and dry them, and spread them out on a tray or plate. Leave them in a sunny place for a couple of days or until the walnuts are completely black.

Pack into clean jars and cover with hot pickling vinegar.

Seal well when cold and store in a cool, dry place for 6-8 weeks before using.

Wild Food (once again)

Some unexpected hedgerow treats from the last few days...

Wild raspberries, masses of plants growing near Ivinghoe Beacon, the fruit tiny but bursting with sweetness. We didn't bother to take these home, just picked them and popped them straight into our mouths. I suppose we should have washed them, but any stray insects were just considered extra protein.




Growing very locally - spotted by Rob on his way home from work this afternoon - some kind of plum! We have seen a few of these trees growing in the hedgerows recently. Confusingly they have plum-coloured leaves, so it's hard to spot the fruit. However there's plenty to be found on close inspection.



We managed to collect a whole punnet during 10 minutes of picking earlier today. The fruit is firm but juicy, sweet but with a lip-puckering tartness too. I'm not sure I will cook with these, I think we'll just eat them as they are. I mean, there's only so much jam a girl can make...

If anyone knows what these are, then I would be very interested to know. And obviously do let me know if they're poisonous... preferably before we eat them all!



And some tantalising glimpses of what is to be foraged next season:

Walnuts.



And hazelnuts.



Not to mention the apples, crab-apples, sloes, haws, rosehips and elderberries that I have my eye on, all growing within 5 minutes' walk of the house. I'd never wish away the Summer, but I can't help but look forward to the Autumn just a little bit!