grindingnuts
I've become a bit obsessed with making macarons and have actually managed to make them come out nicely, so I'm looking to take them to the next level and start using different nuts from almonds.
When I tried to grind up pistachios (or hazelnuts) into a fine powder they become more of a paste (i'm presuming due to the fact that they are more moist), and was wondering if there were any tips for grinding nuts into an extremely fine powder without them becoming a paste?
Thanks!
The natural colors for pistacio meats are green, yellow-green, purple and/or red. Shells are beige. The Kerman variety, which account for 90% of the pistachios grown in California, are yellow-green to deep green. Pistacios from Iran tend to be more in the red-purple spectrum, and are alleged by their partisans to be superior to California pistacios. Personally, I like both the Kerman and the Iranian ones I've been able to sample.
Looking at the picture, I'd say that those nuts were clearly bleached, due to the excessive whiteness of the shells. This seems to be a common practice in China, enough to cause the government to debate a ban on bleaching. Per that article and others, there is no health risk associated with peroxide bleaching, but there is thought to be a significant loss of vitamins due to bleaching.
In my opinion, the best option is to have someone grind them for you. Ask your friends--someone may have a grinder you can borrow, or would be happy to grind them for you in exchange for some cookies or part of the bag of coffee.
If you have a local coffee shop, talk to the barista (over the latte' you just bought) and ask if he/she will grind your beans for you. I've heard even the mighty Starbucks will grind your beans for you if you ask nicely enough.
If you want to do it yourself, you need to find a way to get the beans down to grinds. Some ideas:
Mortar and pestle. Be careful not to make Turkish coffee powder instead of the more chunky grinds you want.
Rolling pin. Put the beans in a heavy Ziploc bag or similar, and have a go at them. Roll, whack, smash.
Have a nice, heavy frying pan? Ziploc bag again, hammer away.
And speaking of hammers...
No, not that Hammer. This hammer.
Best Answer
I have had some luck with other oily nuts by grinding them down into semi-large pieces, and then letting them dry out on a flat cookie sheet. Then, step-wise, grind iteratively, with dry steps in between. If you can do this one time with a lot of product, you can save some in an air tight container for next time.