How to Peel Hazelnuts and Walnuts Easily and Effortlessly

As a child, no one thought for a long time about how to properly peel a walnut from the shell: you found a heavy stone, hit it once - the contents of the nut are in your palm. This method is not feasible in an apartment, so adults have to use their imagination and think about how they can peel the nuts so that the shell fragments do not scatter in different directions, and the fruit itself remains intact and unharmed. There are many ways to peel any nut quickly and safely.

How to properly peel hazelnuts?

Of course, the easiest way is to buy already chopped nuts, but, firstly, it is more expensive, and, secondly, the shelled hazelnuts remain fresher. Hazelnuts are very useful, and their high cost is explained by many factors: a huge number of useful elements and their whimsical habitats. If you've bought hazelnuts that need to be peeled, you need better advice than a hammer or stone.

Of course, a special device for cracking any nuts is ideal for such purposes. But not every kitchen has it, so many people use a garlic press. Be careful: if you hit a hard nut, it may break.

Advice

Never try to crack nuts with your teeth, it is very dangerous and harmful.

We present three ways to clean hazelnuts at home easily and simply:

• using pliers;
• using a bag and a hammer;
• heating in the oven.

Method 1.

Bite the nut with pliers; the pliers themselves should be in the palm of your hand.It is she who will protect the kitchen from shells flying in all directions.

Method 2.

If the hazelnuts are very strong, place them in a cloth bag, place them on a large wooden board and hit them lightly with a hammer. The hazelnut will easily give in, jumping out of the shell.

Method 3.

Place the uncracked nuts on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes in the oven. The shell will crack much easier after heat treatment.

After the hazelnut is freed from its shell, you need to peel it. To do this, pour the nuts into a frying pan and fry for 5 minutes over low heat. You can fry them in the oven at 180 degrees. After frying, the skin will quickly fall off. To avoid peeling each nut separately, place them on a towel, cover them with another and roll them with your palms. This way you can peel all the nuts at once.

How to properly peel walnuts?

On the street, you can easily crack a walnut by simply hitting it with a heavy object. But you shouldn’t use this method in an apartment, because all the neighbors will hear the sounds of your difficult struggle, and the shells, which can “shoot” from under a hammer, will end up in all corners of the kitchen. Another popular method is to split the halves of the “shell” with the tip of a knife. Its effectiveness and safety depend on the variety. If the shell is strong and its halves are tightly compressed, then there is a high chance of injuring your hand or simply bending the knife.

The Treasury of Folk Wisdom has a couple of tips on how to free walnuts from their shells without much effort.

We offer 3 ways to peel nuts at home:

• using boiling water;
• pliers;
• placing in the oven;

Method 1.

Place whole walnuts in a bowl and pour boiling water over them.Leave for just 10 minutes, then wait until the nuts have cooled and carefully crack them with the tip of a knife. A steamed nut will give in very easily, and the shell halves will smoothly “unstick”. Do this very carefully, one careless movement and the knife can pierce the skin!

Method 2.

If you don't have a special nut cracker, no problem. Run to the pantry for some pliers. Here, of course, you need to put in a lot of effort, so it is better for the woman to ask her husband to carry out this operation. The clamped nut should be held in the palm of your hand and the handle should be squeezed with the other hand. Then the fragments will remain in your hand, and not on the floor and under the kitchen furniture.

Advice

Do not use a garlic press: it may fail and break.

Method 3.

Place the nuts on a baking sheet, preheat the oven to 200 degrees and place it there. 10 minutes of heat treatment will be more than enough to make the shell more fragile and pliable. When the walnuts have cooled, break them one by one using a hammer and a regular wooden board. You won’t have to make any special efforts, so be sure that no frightening sounds will reach your neighbors.

When the kernel is freed from the shell, the next problem arises: how to remove the brown, bitter peel? Peeling a young nut is easy and pleasant, because the husk peels off on its own. But the longer it is stored, the more difficult the task will appear before you.

There are two ways to clean the husk:

• pour boiling water;
• fry.

Method 1.

Pour boiling water over the nuts for 5 minutes. After such bathing procedures, they will easily be cleared of the bitter skin, and a pleasant “milky” taste will return to them.

Method 2.

Fry the nuts in a frying pan for just 5 minutes, and the skins will begin to fall off while frying.Watch the color and smell carefully so that the nuts do not burn. Cleaning them after this procedure is easy.

As you can see, you can peel nuts not only with a hammer, stone or any heavy object. This can be done safely and carefully if you know certain tricks. By performing all the procedures correctly, you will not only easily crack the hard, stubborn shell, but also remove the thin, bitter skin.

We recommend reading the article about how to dry walnuts in the oven