Recipe for Pickled Walnuts

Well, my blog has lain dormant just over two years now, so thought I'd reinvent it as something more useful and perhaps more interesting than a council campaign tool(!)
...and as I was talking to people at Rob & Tania's party yesterday, eating lots of delicious food, I promised someone I'd post the recipe for my pickled walnuts, which were going down a treat!
So this is for you Annie, and anyone else who cares to read it...

Pickled Walnuts

Ingredients:

• 150 walnuts
• 250g salt x three
• 6 litres water x three
• 75g each of black peppercorns, mustard seeds, whole cloves, ginger root
• 6 litres vinegar

First up, pick the walnuts at the right time, which is about a week either side of Christmas Day. They are pickled whole with their green skins on, and you need to test them by pushing a needle into the skin - if the wooden shell has already started to form, forget it - they need to be soft all through.

OK, so pick a bucketful, around 150 walnuts...
Then mix up a brine, 6 litres of cold water and 250g salt. Soak the walnuts for three days, stir them once or twice each day. After three days, tip out the old brine and make a new one, soak for another 3 days. Then change the brine one more time, for a total of nine days' soaking.
[NB - this is removing all the bitterness from the green nuts.. don't ever bite into a raw green nut, it is vile!!)

So, after a nine day soak, let the walnuts dry out in the sun, they should now be no longer green but a rich black colour...
Boil up the spices and vinegar, a slow boil for 15-25 mins. Put the nuts into sealable jars, and pour the vinegar (strain out the whole spices) over them.
Seal the jars, and leave for the best part of a year...! (yep sorry, good things take time...) By the time you eat the first ones, as we did yesterday, it reminds you that it is nearly time to pick next year's batch! (So you know what I'll be doing after Christmas lunch this year!)

OK one more thing, I also want to link to the fabulous Otautahi Urban Foraging Map. It's so cool - check out the wild foods of Chch and share your own secrets (anyone can edit the map). The group also has a Facebook page.
Ciao.. will post again soon (well sooner than two years away anyhow!)