Acorn ✦

Gland

What it is

In central California the acorn was the staple grain: the meal was spread in a shallow sand basin and cold stream water run through it for hours until the tannin was gone, a technique with no European equivalent. Those same tannins are why wine and whisky are aged in oak — what makes the nut inedible is what makes the barrel worth having.

In the kitchen

Leach cold, not hot. Cold water pulls the tannin and leaves the starch able to gel, which is exactly what dotori-muk needs; hot leaching gelatinises the starch on the spot and leaves you a flour that can only ever be baked.

Goes with

Soy sauce Toasted sesame oil Gochugaru Garlic chives Honey Chestnut

In season alongside

Artichoke Brussels sprout Camus de Bretagne artichoke Kuwai Saffron milk cap Antep pistachio

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