I Say Nuts to Chopping Nuts. Anyone else?

[Porthos]

I enjoy doing knife work.  I do less cooking and more managing and veggies prep in my ren faire kitchens these days.  I enjoy keeping my knives sharpened.  What I don't enjoy is chopping nuts by hand.

 

I have tried my Cuisinart for chopping up nuts but getting anything remotely close to uniformly-sized pieces has never happened for me.  When I chop nuts by hand I make a mess because of all the nut bits that go shooting off of the cutting board.

 

So I don't chop nuts anymore. If I need chopped nuts for something I buy them already chopped. Anyone else out there who says nuts to chopping nuts?

[blue_dolphin]

I can't chop them without a big mess either.  I usually put them into a zip-top bag and use a rolling pin to smash them up.  Not so good for brazil nuts but works OK for many types.

[Darienne]

Depends where I buy them.  One of my favorite whole food stores buys walnut pieces and walnut halves.  We've found bits of shell just too often in the pieces to buy them...so I buy the halves and chop.  ...but I don't like it...

[Kerry Beal]

When I am forced to chop nuts I use a serrated knife (big cake knife) - prevents them from skipping off the board - or put them through a nut chopper like this.

[Porthos]

Outside of Christmas cookies baking I don't use nuts much except for the brownies I bake for serving as part of dessert for ren faire feasts. My local market has an extensive bulk foods section and pecan pieces are one of the selections. So in the spring and in the fall I use those for the brownies with nuts.

 

I have always dreaded when my DW wants me to hand-chop nuts and she has decided it's easier for her to do it herself than deal with my grumbling.

[gulfporter]

I take my chances with my food processor.  Less is more, I find.  The end result has been good enough for me.  

[heidih]

When I am forced to chop nuts I use a serrated knife (big cake knife) - prevents them from skipping off the board - or put them through a nut chopper like this.

 

This is what I grew up with. We used lots of  chopped nuts in Austrian pastries. For big baking sessions we had a blade for the clamp -on  manual  meat grinder but that was for ground nuts. Some of my relatives use the back &  forth  dual handled curved knife (name escapes me) in  a bowl. More often recently for baklava, Linzer Torte and similar I use the gallon zip lock bag outside on concrete with a big rock or the meat mallet. Never ever occurred to us to chop on the board

[hummingbirdkiss]

muslin  bag I keep just for nuts  and a hard rubber mallet no problem no noise and no mess..I do not like to heat the nuts and my food processor does that when I try to chop them in there ..I can not even imagine the mess I would make trying to chop them with a knife 

I used to use one of those giant wooden mortar and pestle …very light weight ..I bought it in Panama but it was from Japan it was lost in a move and I never replaced it but that kind of thing chops nuts nicely and is so easy to just wipe out 

 

but they work well you can find them in Asian mkts they are great for nuts and pretty light weight and fun to use if you are into that kind of thing ..Love the momentum of using a mortar and pestle correctly. 

[gfron1]

I'm pretty much limited to using pecans, and I buy in bulk from the growers, but what I've found is people want the whole nuts which makes wholes more expensive. Me, I want irregular pieces and drops the price significantly. So I can't remember the last time I've chopped nuts. One of my regulars is a pecan farmer and he told them that there's an even lower grade which they don't publicly sell, but you can always buy by asking, and its the remnants which they sell to farmers as feed. Still food grade. Still shell free. But dirt cheap.

[AlaMoi]

these have been on the market since the '50's - or earlier

http://www.foodchopper.info/chop-o-matic

 

many variations thereupon.  the nifty bit is they 'contain' the chopee - but some minor experience is needed to appreciate how fine/coarse the chop is because the results just appear as a pile of stuff inside the round bit.

[FeChef]

Manual Hand meat grinder, coarse grinding plate. I got mine for $24.99 from Cabela's.

Edited October 13, 2015 by FeChef (log)

[gfweb]

my choice is http://smile.amazon.com/Prepworks-Progressive-Chopper-Non-Skid-Base/dp/B00833DQCU/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1444771801&sr=1-1&keywords=nut+chopper

[Alex]

my choice is http://smile.amazon.com/Prepworks-Progressive-Chopper-Non-Skid-Base/dp/B00833DQCU/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1444771801&sr=1-1&keywords=nut+chopper

 

That's the one I use, too.

[andiesenji]

I have several nut choppers but have been using this one for  a couple of years.

 

It fits on a wide-mouth pint or quart  Mason jar  so I don't have to watch closely to see how much I have chopped.

 

Like the others of similar design, it chops coarse when cranked in one direction and fine when cranked in the opposite direction.

 

More expensive than most others but it is in my opinion, easier to use.  The blades are quite sharp - use a brush to clean them, keep your fingers clear.  (I speak from experience!)

 

 

Not for use with macadamia nuts...

Edited October 13, 2015 by andiesenji (log)

[Smithy]

When I am forced to chop nuts I use a serrated knife (big cake knife) - prevents them from skipping off the board - or put them through a nut chopper like this.

 

I grew up with a nut chopper like that, and we liked the way it cut nuts to a nearly-uniform size.  At some point Mom gave it away in favor of a very large slap-chop-type chopper that made much shorter work of the nuts.  They were contained on the cutting board by the rim of the chopper; the plunger rotated with each push, so everything was chopped in short order.  It was neat and quick. I let it go when they downsized, but own an older version of this Zyliss chopper.  It disassembles easily for cleaning and does a nice job, although its capacity is smaller than you might need.  Because the blade rotates and hits some nuts more than once, the chopping isn't as uniform as in Kerry's linked chopper.  But it's quick!

[Edward J]

I use the robot-coupe for large amounts, anything under 500 gr (1/2 Lb ) goes into a zip lock bag and gets crushed with a rolling pin. No fuss, no mess....

[haresfur]

I sometimes make cocktail-snacks by roasting almonds halves and I cut them by hand. It's not efficient but is sort of meditative - stand them on edge and try to hit the right point so they split along the natural part. The main purpose of the exercise is to slow down the snacking, though.

[Tri2Cook]

They're not going to be any more uniform if I use a knife than if I use a processor. I'm not going to stand there and chop each individual nut into uniformly sized pieces. So I use the processor.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Last night I needed about a quarter cup of quartered cashews for bryani.  I broke the raw whole nuts up with my hands.  When I require sliced almonds (as I also did for the bryani) I buy sliced almonds.  There is a reason.

[Josh71]

I usually do this:

 

- Toast all the nuts in frying pan

- Put all the toasted nuts in a plastic bag

 

Then I use my DIY hammer to crush them.

 

Easy and fast, well for small amounts

[rotuts]

I have the same nut-chopper as gfweb.

 

unfortunately mine is in black, not red.

 

 

works very well.

 

but the walnuts for the brownie's top i get TJ to chop them for me.

 

[lindag]

Recently when I needed a cup or so of chopped pecans I started thinking about shopping for a nut chopper.  I ordered the top-rated model http://www.amazon.com/PL8-Nut-Chopper-1405/dp/B00JLIKD1I/ref=sr_1_3?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1444826162&sr=1-3&keywords=nut+chopper from Amazon.  What a disappointment!  It didn't even come close to evenly chop, it reduced most to a powder.  Next time was in that situation I remembered the Slap Chop that I bought a few years ago.  It did the best job of anything and much easier than using a knife.

[Darienne]

My chopper of choice, after trying and wearing out or breaking many in my long married life, is from Pampered Chef.  Yes, it is costly, but by heavens, it works and works well.  The nut pieces won't be of equal size - is there any chopper which does that? - but miss-sized nuts have never been a problem in our eating life.  DH and I are both avid nut fans and where others amazingly leave out the nuts called for in a recipe...I will always double the nuts to keep him happy.  :rolleyes:   Nothing like a happy husband.

[cakewalk]

Goodness, isn't this why we all sing the praises of Trader Joe's? Nuts. Chopped and unchopped. Bless their hearts. 

[Paul Bacino]

Pampered chef.. chopper!!

 

I use it all the time.