hi I'm Michael Foreman and I'm the head chef at around the table in Camas Washington and I'm here today to tell you about how to toast macadamia nuts macadamia nuts are indigenous to Hawaii they are extremely hard to shell so nine times out of ten you're only going to find them shell already because it takes 300 pounds per square inch to crack a nut and if you toast them in the shell it does make the shell brittle and a little bit easier or you could boil them and a little bit of salt water and that does make the skin a little bit leathery it makes it a little bit easier all right here in the macadamia there's a little seam and you just take your knife across it since they are so large it doesn't make it a lot easier to toast them without burning them and getting a good toasty flavor all the way through some of the things you can do is uh use them salad toppings you can make pesto's out of them you could grind them up and use them as a meal to coat fish in there's almost limit lots of possibilities you need to have an oven about two hundred and fifty degrees because you don't want to since they are and have high fat content you don't want to burn them and you want to get a nice rich flavor out of them before they get too dark I already have some in the oven toasting just spread them evenly so he's get nice circulation and here your finished products it brings out the nut flavor it makes it nice and uh for presentation again you could use them for a salad topping you could use them as a crust for fish or you could use them anything you want if you put them in brownies or baked goods if you toast them prior to they have a lot richer flavor that you're looking for in the flavor of the nut