There is a special place in my heart for walnuts. In the garden of our family home back in Hungary we have an almost 60-year-old walnut tree that witnessed all our important family occasions (both happy and sad). My grandparents planted it when they bought the land and built the house on it in the 1970s.
I remember collecting the walnuts, drying them in the garage for weeks in sacks, collecting the fallen leaves from the ground and towards the end of November cracking the walnuts open inside the house. We had years when the tree produced around 8-12 kg of walnuts. After I moved out my mum always made sure we had enough so she always packed a few bags for us. Something that reminded us home.
In the past couple of years, the tree didn’t do too well. It’s alive and well but it’s either not producing any walnuts or the quality is so bad it goes straight to the bird feeder. I’m sure the tree felt the difficulties of the past few years. My grandmother passed away during Covid, we couldn’t attend the funeral due to restrictions, and we couldn’t visit for two years. There also had to be major renovations done on house that created some mess in the garden.
Life has been calmer lately and I very much enjoy spending time in the garden swing when we visit. Fingers crossed for a good harvest in the future.
Anyway, back to the kitchen.
I love cooking with walnuts; they are so much more than what most people would use them for. In one of my events, I served an amuse bouche of celeriac purée, apples and crystallised walnuts. I put the nuts in cold water, boiled them, strained them, put them in fresh water again and boiled them. I repeated this 8 times until the water was clear. I made a sugar syrup with glucose and boiled the walnuts until the syrup was reduced and the walnuts were coated. Then transferred them to a tray and roasted them in the oven. I waited until they cooled and chopped them up.
In my events every single dish is thought through to its core and executed by not sparing any hard labour on the details for the delicious end result.
Another Hungarian walnut dish I was writing about is Gerbaud (apricot jam and ground walnut layered in-between pastry with a chocolate topping).
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