More precisely we want to
focus on hazelnuts.
You all know them from
bakery or Nutella. Large regions of Europe are
crowded with the common hazel, a shrub of 3-8 meters height. Some days
ago we found such a shrub. The funny thing is, we passed it for years
now and never noticed it. But this day the surrounding ground was
paved with nuts, so there was no way to overlook it.
Let us tell you a little
bit about the plant and where to find it.
The common hazel (Corylus avellana) is native in most European regions. During Mesolithic it was the dominating woody plant and its nuts have had an important part in nutrition for eras. Nowadays mainly nuts from Corylus maxima (Filbert / German “Lambertshasel”) are on the market.
Hazel shrubs can be found
in light woods, edges and hedges. The wood of hazels is not good for any
relevant usage. However, young branches can be used for barrel hoops,
fences or the like. In early spring, young leaves and catkins can be
used as vegetable like spinach.
But as mentioned above,
the real treasure are the nuts.
They are rich in protein
and unsaturated fat. High amounts of vitamins B1, B2, and E,
magnesium and calcium make them very valuable for nutrition. The nuts can be stored for months if you leave them in their shell.
In traditional medicine
the leaves have been used for curing liver diseases. Catkins brewed
as tea are diaphoretic and the nuts are salutary for brain and
nerves.
Hazelnuts are delicious
freshly peeled or roasted. But you can use them in lots of dishes,
sweet and salty. Mainly the nuts are used directly or pressed to oil
in pastries.
Okay, back to our personal
treasure :-) We gathered a large bowl of nuts so far and hopefully
there's more to come. But of course not everything is for storage.
We'd like to try three dishes with them. Or more precisely two
pastries and one salty dish, which we think could be tasty. But we
have to wait for a special ingredient ;-)
What would you do with
plenty of hazelnuts?
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