Pecans 100g

Uses

Pecan nuts are a delicious snack on their own or added to a combination of other nuts, seeds and dried fruits to make the ultimate trail mix. Roughly chop pecan nuts to sprinkle over salads, stir-fries, smoothie bowls, granola, muesli and porridge. Grind down pecans to make a pecan meal that is suitable for adding to baked goods, or you can also add them whole to baked goods including cookies, muffins and loaves. For additional flavour from pecans, lightly toast them with the optional addition of honey or maple syrup. This tantalising sweet snack is great on its own or added to your next entertaining platter.

A pecan, like the fruit of all other members of the hickory genus, is not truly a nut but is technically a drupe, a fruit with a single stone or pit surrounded by a husk. Pecans were one of the most recently domesticated major crops. Although wild pecans were well known among native and colonial Americans as a delicacy, the commercial growing of pecans in the United States did not begin until the 1880s (only 138years). It takes between 7 to 10 years before a pecan tree begins to produce a full supply of nuts.  But once the process starts the tree can produce for a very long time, sometimes more than 100 years. There are more than 1,000 varieties of pecans, many named for Native American Indian tribes, but only about 20 are in commercial use.