Macadamia Nuts

Week: 7
Ingredient: Macadamia Nuts
From: Martin’s, Harrisonburg, VA
Recipe: Macadamia Coconut Tart

If you believe my past food experiences, the only way to eat macadamia nuts is in White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies. Of course, that is ridiculous. With the versatility of other nuts—almonds, walnuts, pecans, and hazelnuts, to name a few—macadamias must be more than a one-hit wonder. So, when I decided to cook with macadamia nuts this week, my only goal was not to make White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies.

My cookbooks were lacking in macadamia recipes, but the internet was quite accommodating. Most of the recipes I found seemed to follow a theme; if they did not include white chocolate, they had some tropical ingredient. Banana, coconut, pineapple, and citrus were all common. However, I did find some interesting oddballs, like Cream of Macadamia Nut Soup. Unfortunately, I did not have all the right ingredients to make that, so I opted for something more mainstream: Macadamia Coconut Tart.

If you took pecan pie, converted it into a tart, replaced the pecans with macadamia nuts, and added coconut, you would have Macadamia Coconut Tart. It is pretty simple—and delicious. Macadamia nuts are buttery on their own, and with all the butter in the tart, I experienced buttery bliss. With the delicate flavor of the nuts and coconut, keeping the ingredients simple was the right thing to do. Some brown sugar and vanilla rounded out the flavors nicely. I would definitely make the tart again.

Conclusion: Macadamia nuts are creamy, mild, and a little sweet. I tend to find lots of uses for different types of nuts, and I am sure macadamias will be the same. They are slightly more expensive than some other varieties, so I will not keep them on hand all the time. Still, I think they deserve a place in my nut repertoire—and not always beside white chocolate or a tropical ingredient.