Pili nuts

Shaped like almonds but superior to the almond, pili nuts are crunchy without the hard texture of almonds. They are soft (similar to the texture of macadamia) and sweet with a very delicate flavor. Pili nut is the nut of any tree of the genus Canarium (family Burseraceae) and has the highest oil content among all edible nuts. The 70% oil content probably accounts for the soft texture.

There are 75 varieties of the pili nut, also known as Java almond, kenari nut and Philippine nut. The scientific name for the local variety is Canarium ovatum. The Bicol region is center of the pili nut industry.

The symmetrically shaped, densely foliated, evergreen tree can reach a height of 20 - 30 meters. It is storm-resistant and starts fruiting 5-6 years after seed germination. Female trees are much more productive than male trees. At present there are trials to growing time by grafting and cloning high prolific plants. A fully developed tree produces approximately 100 - 150 kg raw nuts per season (May to September) , when it is twelve to fifteen years old… [Bicol’s Pride: The Pili Nuts]

isulong seoph

Roasted whole pili nuts are sold salted or sugar coated (caramelized or otherwise), ground pili nuts are made into marzipans and puddings and chopped pili nuts are used for garnishing ice cream and cakes (check out my pili nut butterscotch brownies). The pili nut is an ingredient in the very popular Chinese moon cakes.

Little known outside Southeast Asia, the unpopularity of the pili nut for wide-scale commercial food manufacturing may be due to the difficulty in cracking the hard shells in addition to inconsistent production and lack of quality control.

Thus development of the mechanical pili nutcracker by Engrs. Arnulfo P. Malinis, Estrella A. Calpe, and Alan P. Rabe of the Bicol University College of Agriculture and Forestry (BUCAF) that can crack 112.5 kilograms of pili nuts per hour at an efficiency rate of 91.11percent for sorted nuts and medium-sized nuts is one step forward toward boosting the pili nut industry. There is no denying that pili nuts can be a very important crop for export. It may be little known in Europe and the Americas at this point but ”according to Richard A. Hamilton, University of Hawaii at Manoa (macadamia breeder), the current status of the pili is equivalent to that of the macadamia some 30 years ago.”

isulong seoph

Technorati tags: pili+nuts, Philippine+nuts, nuts

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