Acorn, popularly known as the oak nut, is a light to dark green colored nut that is used in some cuisines like the indigenous American and Korean in a number of forms. This moderately sized nut (which varies between 1 and 6 inches length and 0.8 to 4 cm in breadth) comes with a single or at the most two seeds and is used as in the powdered form, and in the form of a starch. Even the seeds in the roasted form make delicious acorn recipes. Acorn juice was used as a remedy to cure addictive drinkers of alcohol addiction. Acorn grits, Acorn bread, Acorn griddle cakes, acorn tortillas (Mexican), acorn muffins and pancakes, acorn breakfast cornmeal, acorn treats and acorn cookies are some of the dishes commonly prepared with acorns. Apart from human beings, the acorn is consumed to a large extent by birds, insects and mammals. Popular acorn recipes include those for dotrimuk( Korean acorn jelly), and dotori guksu( Korean pasta prepared using acorn flour or pasta), and Japanese acorn cakes.
Origin of Acorns
The acorn has been a traditional staple of the Native Americans, especially the Californians, for a long time. The oak trees and the acorns were cultivated, harvested and managed by the Native American women for consumption. The acorn enjoys mythological, cultural and artistic significance. According to the Norse legend, acorns were put on windowsills to protect the house from lightening during a storm.
Culinary Uses of Acorn
The acorn, once considered a major food by many cuisines, is consumed now to a large extent by only Native Americans and Koreans. The nuts, the flour, the seeds and the juice of the acorn are included by many acorn recipes. Roasted acorn nuts are a delicacy in Korean cuisine.
Popular Acorn Recipes
- Acorn Grits – these constitute a mixture made of coarsely grounded acorns. These can be used as a substitute for chopped nuts in many recipes. The mixture may be cooked in different ways as per different acorn recipes. They may be boiled or deep-fried and served as a complementary dish for a meal. They are also used in soups and salads. One of the most popular acorn dishes includes granola-like cereal bars in which the grits are deep-fried and then cooked further to make the bars. The grits are also used to make acorn cookies with mainly wheat-flour.
- Acorn meal and grounded nut recipes- Acorn meal, with its naturally sweet flavor is preferred for usage in certain dishes as a replacement for flour. Acorn bread is made of acorn meal. The grounded acorns may be roasted and then used in place of coffee when the strength of the beverage is not expected to very strong. Acorn griddle cake is a dish made with an acorn meal batter which is cooked on a griddle with oil or fat. Acorn tortillas are made in the Mexican cuisine using acorn meal, but unlike the griddle cake batter, stiff dough is rolled out into tortillas and shallow-fried in a skillet. Acorn muffins are another fondly eaten dish made using acorn flour. The flour is mixed with eggs, milk and other required ingredients for making a muffin batter which is baked in an oven in a muffin pan. Acorn meal porridge made by boiling the acorn flour in water is a healthy breakfast dish. Dotori guksu is Korean pasta made with acorn flour in combination with wheat flour.
- Acorn kernel recipes- Candied acorn kernel is a delectable dessert made by coating shelled, boiled and dried kernels of acorn with sugar and cream glaze one at a time and then hardening the glaze on the nut.
- Dotorimuk- this is a jelly made of acorn starch. Preparation involves shelling the nuts, grinding them to a paste, collecting starch from the paste and drying it. The contemporary version of the dotorimuk is made conveniently using the prepared starch which is available commercially. A pudding is made with the starch and allowed to set till it becomes a hardened jelly cake. The jelly, is flavored with other ingredients like silvered carrots, soy sauce, garlic, red chlli pepper powder, scallions, and sesame oil or seeds. It is served as a complementary dish.
Cuisines Using Acorn
Acorn, as mentioned earlier, is mostly used by the North American and Korean cuisines in the present times, though they were more widely used in the earlier days. While the Americans preferred to make mainly cakes, muffins, soufflés, breads and desserts with acorns and its associated products, the Koreans made other kinds of acorn dishes.
Preferable Methods of Cooking Acorn
Acorn is cooked in a number of forms and in a number of ways to make different types of dishes. The shell of the acorns needs to be removed before the nut inside is used for any culinary purpose. The shells should only be removed just before usage, and not a long time before that as in such a case, the nuts may get dried up or shriveled. Acorns have tannin which is leeched out of the nut by boiling it in water or by rinsing with cold water. For acorn recipes which use whole nuts, the nuts can be tasted prior to their usage in the dishes for bitterness which makes them unfit for usage as whole nuts. These nuts should be ground and washed to remove the tannic acid which causes the bitterness. Acorn is cooked in different ways. Baking, roasting (seeds), boiling, and pan-frying are some of the common methods by which the whole nut, the coarsely ground nut mixture and the nut flour are used in different recipes.
Storing Acorns
Acorns that have the exterior shell intact should be stored, and the rest thrown. An acorn which has its shell eaten by insects, or cracks should not be stored as the meal inside the nut will get dried up by exposure to the outside atmosphere. The acorn should be stored in a dry container in a cool place and with their shells which can be removed only at the time of cooking. Acorns have a natural tendency to dry up and are not known to last for more than six months even under the best storage conditions at room temperature. However they can be stored in the freezer for a longer period of time in which case the shelled acorns may be collected in a zipped bag and preserved in the freezer.
Acorn Trivia
The acorn is best bought ripe in the autumn season. They should be shelled and boiled for at least a couple of hours to remove their bitterness and then roasted in an oven for about an hour at 350 degrees. The acorns are now ready for usage either in the whole nut form or in the grounded form.
