This blog has been seriously neglected.
Time to make amends.
My lovely neighbours brought me some Bunya nuts. It was a lovely surprise as I had no idea we had any bunya pine trees nearby. I have wanted to try them ever since I’d heard of them. It seems they are quite common in our neighbourhood.
I was very pleased when I realised we have actually one of our very own!
Bunya nuts have been on this planet for thousands of years. They are part of the Aboriginal culture and, I’ve heard that were even eaten by dinosaurs.
Bunya pine trees are enormous, they grow up to 45 metres tall. You certainly don’t want to hang around them when the nuts are falling!
Lo and behold, a few days later our tree dropped the biggest nut I have seen so far….and it contained no less than 97 nuts!
Preparing the nuts.
First you remove the nuts from the main pod.
Then after boiling or roasting (200deg) for half an hour, you have to shell them. The shell is very hard and it takes ages but is well worth the effort. Boiling them splits the shells slightly and I found I could remove it fairly easily with a pair of clippers.
The neighbours were of course invited to share in the bounty and we made a delicious warm salad/ stir fry. The nuts were combined with garlic, zucchini (courgettes), parsley, olive oil and, I also added some finger limes and ground pepper berries which seemed fitting alongside the indigenous bunya nuts.
I also used them as a base for a curry which was delicious but as the flavour of the nuts is so delicate, (they taste similar to sweet chestnuts), sadly the curry completely overpowered the flavour of the nuts.
Bessies goats! 