Yo, Macadamia Do You Have Any CDs of Enya?

I eat macadamia nuts from time to time, you know, the occasional white chocolate macadamia cookie, or sometimes in December when people eat a lot of exotic fruits and nuts and summer sausage for some reason. In fact, I acquired some macadamia nuts in the shell about a month and a half ago from someone who had received them as a gift and was like, "here, you figure out what to do with these." They sat in my car for about a month, and recently I brought them into the kitchen.

A couple weeks ago I decided I'd open some up and enjoy a tasty snack.

First I tried a normal nutcracker which served only to agitate me. So I broke out the cast iron skillet and placed a macadamia nut on a cutting board. WHAM! The cutting board jumped and my macadamia nut skitted off unscathed, taking refuge somewhere underneath the oven. Naturally I decided a stronger blow would do the trick, so I set up another nut and took aim. It worked. . . sort of. The shell and nut were demolished, nearly indistinguishable from each other, and totally useless. After a couple more whacks and wasted nuts I surrendered. But lived to fight another day. . . .

It's been kind of warm here lately and last night I felt a hankering for a summery meal and with the pesky macadamias on my mind remembered seeing someone on a cooking show use macadamia nuts and panko to bread fish. So I walked to Smith's and bought the best looking fish they had. On the walk back I used my trusty iphone to research macadamia cracking methods.

There are specialty macadamia crackers; weren't gonna help me that night. People recommended C-clamps; I know I have a couple, but have no idea where they are - plus it seems like it would be pretty slow. Finally I came across this from OChef:

Another Hawaiian says, "As children, we knew where and when to go out and gather these nuts. How did we open them? We found just the right sized hole in the curbings of the streets where we lived; it had to be just deep enough to hold the nut in place. A well-placed nut in the right sized recess will come apart fairly well when given a sharp blow with a hammer."

I found a couple good nooks in the broken concrete of my driveway and started swinging. It worked like a charm. About 20 minutes later I had a nice stash of macadamia nuts to use. I ground them and mixed them in a bowl with a little flour and bread crumbs. I mixed some buttermilk and sriracha in another bowl and gave my tuna fillets a bath in that first and then dipped 'em in the nut mixture. I seared them in hot peanut oil for about 2 mins on each side and then finished them in the 400 degree oven for about 3 or 4 mins.

I served them on a bed of carrot, raddichio and sweet onion stir fry. (Slice those three ingredients thin and saute them on medium high in a couple tbsps peanut oil for about 3 mins, then add some sliced green onions and chopped cilantro, cook it all up until your veggies are tender, but still crisp.)

My finished product was a victory, in my opinion. Man conquers nut, and hunger.