If you have walnut trees on your land, you don’t have to wait until autumn to enjoy the nuts. The unripe “green” nuts have a long history of uses in New England and Europe.
When doing anything with walnuts, be aware that their juice will stain your clothes, hands and cutting surface. Brush up on canning safety and examine your projects carefully before eating.
A walnut is ready to use when it’s roughly the size of an apricot and the shell is still soft enough to cut through easily. In Maine, this will be some time in June depending where you live. Look for those still on the branch for best quality. The nuts can be stored for a short time in a cool place if you can’t harvest and process them on the same day.
Preserves
Peel the nuts using a knife or a heavy-duty peeler. Slice them and poke some holes in them with a fork and cover with water for at least a week, changing the water every few days. This process will leach out the tannins, the compounds that make the nuts taste bitter.
When they’ve been soaked, combine with equal parts sugar and water on the stove. For three-quarters of a pound of walnuts, use two cups of water and sugar and half a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Simmer on low heat for an hour, then bring to a boil until the mixture reduces to a syrup.
Transfer the nuts into jars, add about a tablespoon of lemon juice and cover with syrup. The nuts can then age for about a month for best taste.
Pickles
This English recipe reportedly tastes like a tart olive and pairs well with cheese and crackers. To try it with 30 walnuts, mix a quarter cup of kosher salt with a quart of water in a half-gallon jar. Poke five or six holes in each walnut so the brine can get in, add to the mixture and let ferment for 10 days.
Then, take the walnuts out and let them dry for a day or two. At this point they will turn black. Split the nuts between two quart jars and cover with a boiling mix made from a quart of apple cider vinegar, half a cup of granulated sugar, five cloves and a tablespoon each of molasses, peppercorns and allspice berries. Seal the jars and let them age for at least a month.
Molasses
At least one experimenter has created molasses by cutting walnuts in half, mixing them with twice their volume in brown sugar and leaving them at room temperature until the walnuts release their liquid and the mixture ferments, dissolving the sugar. After several weeks, the mixture is simmered on the stove, strained and jarred.
Ketchup and sauce
This old-time English recipe creates a “ketchup” with a taste between Worcestershire and steak sauce. Chopped walnuts are combined with two types of vinegar. For 25 walnuts, use 6 ounces of malt vinegar and about 2 cups of cider vinegar in a glass container and let it sit for eight days.
Then, the mixture is boiled with spices, red wine and anchovies for 45 minutes and strained. For 25 walnuts, use 1.5 tablespoons kosher salt, one ounce rinsed anchovies, half an onion, half a cup of red wine, half a teaspoon each of nutmeg, cayenne pepper and ginger, and an eighth of a cup of grated horseradish. It can be eaten right away, but the flavor deepens with age.
The very young leaves of the tree can also be used to make a sauce for fish recipes. One old recipe from colonial Virginia suggests a mixture of a quart of salt, a handful of horseradish, six chopped onions, two teaspoons of allspice and one teaspoon of black pepper. That mixture can be layered with walnut leaves in a jar to fill it, then cover with vinegar. After two weeks in the sun, the mixture is bottled and left to age for six months.
Spirits
The unripe nuts have traditionally been used in creating dark liqueurs, like nocino. Nuts are cut into quarters, combined in a jar with some vanilla, a cinnamon stick and the zest of a lemon, then covered with high-proof grain alcohol. Forty days later, the mix is strained and combined with a simple syrup, then left to age for at least six months. For both of these steps, shake the jar often.
You can mash the leftover walnuts from this process to make a chutney or jam, or mix them with a bottle of red wine and six tablespoons of sugar. Six months later you’ll have vin de noix, an old French recipe.
