Previously I talked about my encounter with the monkey-puzzle nut. Now I take it that these are not too popular in the culinary world, or maybe I should say non-existent. Or maybe I just didn’t look in the right place. I searched around for various ways to put them to use but didn’t have much luck. Take that as I didn’t find lists of recipes like monkey-nut encrusted halibut or say chocolate monkey-nut torte. I’m sure there are quite a few recipes out there but I didn’t see anything stand out. Nor did I click on numerous sites in order to see if there was one buried somewhere. Maybe those cooks just aren’t into the online thing or, if they are, just are not aware of how to make something of this sort more noticeable. Then again, maybe the recipe out there is to cook, peel , and eat. Enough of that, time to be creative.

Here are some measurement specs:

When I found these nuts, labeled piñon, or pine nut in English, I thought hmmm since I can never find the common pine nut for a decent pesto, maybe these will make a great substitute. So I decided to send a note over to Dan, over at SaltShaker, on his thoughts because 1) he’s on the search for great pesto up in Buenos Aires and 2) he has posted a few times about pine nuts. The only problem was basil. I had two large potted basil plants until earlier this year when they decided that their time was right not to be a part of this world any longer. The only basil I can find at this time of the year are small seedling type plants encased in plastic-wrapped trays. Not very practical when you need an abundant amount. However, herbs like parsley and cilantro are offered in large fresh bunches. Basil is a pretty sensitive plant so my guess is that due to it being winter and all, freshly cut bunches wouldn’t make the journey from wherever they are grown. Who knows.

Arugula was also offered as a suggestion but that was hopeless as well. Around here, one week it is available and for the next three it isn’t. Obviously the powers that be decided that pesto would just have to wait for another day. A bit of a mash up was quite in order. I wanted a fresh herb sauce, with nuts of course, and an abundant amount of garlic. However, I wanted to take it a step further and create a sauce for meat. Meat, that is the theme of this site of course. Therefore, I decided to fall back on two trustworthy friends in my savory flavoring world: cilantro and chili peppers. Give me a puree of those two on a desert island and I’ll be like a pig in…..well you know.

The idea for ingredients were swirling in my head. I wanted this sauce to have a sour note as well as nice kick. The monkey-puzzle nuts would provide some nice texture and at the same time keep the sourness from going too far.

Obviously, to me at least, these things need to be cooked for any use. I took a nibble out of a raw one and the experience was like eating a cashew with a pinch of cornstarch and flour. Therefore, I roasted 18 monkey puzzle nuts in the oven within their shells for about 10 minutes. . Before I go further, a word to the wise when roasting monkey puzzle nuts within their shells in the oven: give each one a prick with a knife just to prevent an explosion disaster. With my first attempt at roasting these monkey-puzzle nuts, “exploded” didn’t come anywhere near the mess that occurs when roasting chestnuts. Let’s just say that when I roasted chestnuts for the first time, it sounded like some unknown enemy was launching an artillery barrage on my kitchen. Cleaning the oven afterward was another matter. I didn’t know that you needed to give a decent prick or slice on the casing. I didn’t believe the same was required for monkey-puzzle nuts and there were a few POPS, but only the shells ripped open, not a full blown grenade explosion like the chestnut.

So I pulled the nuts out of the oven and let them cool while I prepared the rest of the ingredients. I took 4 jalapeño peppers, split them in half, and removed the membrane and seeds. Next I took a bunch of cilantro, that equaled probably 1/4 cup when finely chopped, and chopped it up a bit to make it easier on the ‘ol food processor. Then I peeled four large cloves of garlic.

I wanted this sauce to be a bit chunky so I decided to pulse the cilantro, garlic, jalapeños, and nuts together along with about 1/2 cup of olive oil and 1/8 cup each of lemon juice and red wine vinegar in a food processor. Everything pureed nicely but the nuts were still a bit chunky; just the way I wanted them to be.

Next was the season to taste part where the measurements became a bit cloudy. Basically I drizzled in various amounts of olive oil and vinegar, along with salt, until a proper balance was reached.

If you ever come across these nuts, give em a try. I wouldn’t be surprised to see, some time down the road, that these become one of those fad-crazed ingredients that hit the culinary world ever so often. Monkey-puzzle this, monkey-puzzle that, you know what I mean.

I was in the produce section of the supermarket one day and noticed a shelf full of plastic-wrap sealed packets filled with some sort of nut within their shells. Piñon was the only designated name printed on the label and piñon is Spanish for pine nut. However, these didn’t look like any pine nut I have seen before. I thought to myself: those are just too large to contain those little white, somewhat translucent nuts I’ve seen in the spice section of many supermarkets in my life. Hmmmph, maybe I should ask my wife before messing with something I have no clue about, I decided. Must be something local. Well, turns out she didn’t know either. Why didn’t I just hop online to search, you ask? Well, I just didn’t think about it at the time. I consider myself a curious person regarding newly encountered foods, but in this case I don’t know. It looked like some sort of nut, and although I like pecans, walnuts, almonds, etc, they are not something I immediately jump upon when encountering anything new of the sort.

So a few days passed and then one day my wife came home from work to say that the cleaning lady brought a bunch of those piñones I had asked about the other day. Well I guess she wasn’t as curious as me because the only information I was able to pull out of her was that the lady just said to boil them for about ten minutes, peel, and eat. “Oh, they tasted good too!”, my wife said.

Later on, I decided to purchase a pack at the supermarket and give ‘em a try.

Into the hot water they went. Instead of cooling with cold water I decided just to let them sit and cool on their own. Peeling wasn’t too difficult but if I really wanted to peel a large quantity it would take some time. I found the easiest way was to rip the pointed end and just kind of squeeze the nut out. The nuts are quite large, just a tad bit smaller than the shell. They have a creamy translucent appearance and the flesh is firm yet somewhat flexible. Now for the taste. I don’t eat chestnuts that often, maybe once or twice a year when I can find them. Also, I find that I can only eat a few chestnuts at each sitting. For some reason after a few I find myself lacking the hunger for more. These nuts, I feel or maybe my tastes are messed up, are quite similar to chestnuts. The texture is somewhat the same but not entirely. These nuts are much firmer but somehow have the same feeling of “density” when you chew them around. If that makes any sense, but probably not.

Now I was curious. Maybe these can be used as a substitute for common pine nuts, which I can never find where I’m at, or chestnuts, or many other kinds of nuts that can be softened a bit. Since these were labeled piñon, I thought I’d search around. Well I’ll spare you the minor details for this part but in the end I wound up at Wikipedia. They always cross-link articles and such so maybe I could find something there. This is what I found on the page for pine nuts

The large edible seeds of species of the Southern Hemisphere conifer genus Araucaria, notably the Monkey-puzzle (A. araucana) of Chile and the Bunya-bunya (A. bidwillii) of Australia, are also often called pine nuts.

Large…Southern Hemisphere….pine nuts. That must be it! Clicked on the Monkey-Puzzle link but no image of nuts. Alright, quick image search on Google. BINGO!

So there you have it, the Araucaria araucana, or better known as Monkey-puzzle, nut.

The origin of the popular English name Monkey-puzzle derives from its early cultivation in Britain in about 1850, when the species was still very rare in gardens and not widely known. The proud owner of a young specimen at Pencarrow garden near Bodmin in Cornwall was showing it to a group of friends, and one made the remark “It would puzzle a monkey to climb that”;

Found this good article too. Maybe I’ll plant a few and wait ten years for little seedlings. Right!

Recipe experiment….to be continued….

Alright I’ve finally prioritized a few things and finished with a bunch of cleaning up. Now I can get this site going again.

First things first, as I’m sure you can see, I’ve redesigned the layout of the site and upgraded to the latest version of Wordpress. Not sure if you’ll like it but with the other design there just wasn’t much room for growth on page real estate. Like where I could put the Flickr photos at the top. Not to mention the colors made my eyes hurt. But maybe this new design will make YOUR eyes hurt HA! Also, since I’ve converted from a 2-column layout to 3-column everything may look a bit cluttered at first. There were many reasons for doing this but it is something I wanted to do. If you want something more noticeable, like where you don’t have to scroll down a lot, let me know. I think I have all of the major bugs worked out but if something is messed up please report it.

Now, I started this site to strictly focus on “traditional” asado in Argentina and I intend to keep it that way for the most part. However, I’m going to continue to mix in a few other “off the beaten path” type posts just to keep things going. You know, like the Pizza a la parrilla or barbequed turkey type posts. Now those did have something to do with a grill and Argentinean cuisine but don’t be shocked if I mix in a few other posts regarding my culinary cooking adventures. Why? Well let me explain a bit. I can write up posts to finish up the rest of the typical cuts of meat used in a asado, I have many drafts sitting on the drawing table, but I really need to post the photos along with them. If I don’t then who knows when I’ll get around to taking the pictures to supplement them. Also, I might miss something that can only be remembered while cooking and taking notes. Better, for me at least, to get it all taken care of at the same time. Like what BBQ Junkie : pointed out here, it takes out the fun but needs to be done. Therefore, instead of having long lags between posts I should drop down some off the wall experiments or write about other regional items I cook to keep this site a little higher up on the freshness scale. I thought about starting another food site to keep things separate but one would end up lagging behind the other. So let’s just see how this works out. It won’t be much, I promise, but just enough to where you don’t have to wait a week, a month, or whatever to see a new post.