The market · Nuts and seeds · Southern Europe, Northern and Central Europe
Hazelnuts
Sweet, buttery nuts that come alive when roasted — Turkey grows most of the world's, and Piedmont the most prized.
nutty · roasted · sweet
What to do with it
Kinds
- Tonda Gentile (Piedmont)
- Round and sweet; for gianduja.
- Cobnuts
- Kent's fresh hazelnuts, eaten green.
Goes with
Knowing it
- Where to buy
- Anywhere; blanched and roasted ones save time.
- Worth knowing
- Roast at 180°C for about ten minutes, then rub them in a tea towel to lose the skins.
Kitchens that keep it in
Catalonia — north-eastern Spain, from the Pyrenees to the Ebro deltaCatalanA Mediterranean kitchen of sauces — a slow sofregit to begin, a pounded picada to finish — with bread rubbed with tomato, vegetables charred in the embers, and sea and mountain on the same plate.7 classicsAsturias — the green mountains and coast of northern Spain, on the Bay of BiscayAsturianA kitchen of rain and mountains: big white beans stewed with smoked sausage, milk and blue cheese, fish from the Cantabrian Sea, and cider poured from a height.7 classics
