Baru nut ✦

Noix de baru

What it is

Baru is a legume, not a nut, and belongs to the same genus as the tonka bean — Dipteryx — gathered under wild savanna trees whose fruit cattle eat and scatter across the Cerrado. Roasting is not a matter of flavour here: the raw seed carries trypsin inhibitors and is not food until it has been through the oven.

In the kitchen

Twenty minutes at 180 °C, turned once — underroasted baru tastes green and sits heavily, and colour will not tell you, only smell. Salt it after roasting rather than before; the tannic finish wants salt and something acid beside it.

Goes with

Dark chocolate Coffee Honey Banana Cassava Tonka bean Salt

Same species

Tonka bean

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