Boil Green Peanuts - wikiHow

Boil Green Peanuts - wikiHow

How to Boil Green Peanuts

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Green (also called "raw") peanuts are ones that haven't fully matured yet; they've reached full size, but haven't dried out. Boiling green peanuts is a tradition in the rural southeastern US where peanuts are grown both in small gardens and large farms. They are also enjoyed in India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Indonesia, China, Australia, and Vietnam.[1] There are many variations, depending on the seasoning used, but the basic method is the same for all of them, and the process of boiling makes the peanuts healthier for you, since boiled peanuts have more polyphenol antioxidants than roasted ones.[2] Here are the steps for this fun project.

Steps

1. Select the right peanuts for boiling. Jumbo green peanuts are preferred by many, but most standard peanuts work well, so long as they are still green, or uncured (dry). Do not attempt this recipe with roasted peanuts, as they will not become soft, no matter how long you cook them. In the south, farmer's markets and roadside vendors sell green peanuts from early August through mid-October, but the earlier peanuts are usually better for boiling.
   
2. Wash and pick through your peanuts, removing loose soil and sprouts, stems, weeds, and leaves. You can place your peanuts in a large pot or bucket and use a sprayer on a garden hose to rinse your peanuts, and when the water floats the nuts, the loose debris will float to the top when the contents of the pot is agitated or stirred.
   
3. Set up a cooker if you are boiling a large amount at one time, or get a good heavy pot to place on the stove. In the photos, the peanuts are boiled outside, using a propane burner and a 20 quart (5 gallon) stainless steel stock pot.
   
4. Pour your peanuts into the pot, and add water. Most will float to the top, so the amount of water may have a deceptive appearance. Push the peanuts down with your (clean) hands, and you will be able to tell how much water is in the pot.
   
5. Add salt to taste. This can be tricky, but a rule of thumb is to add 1/2 cup salt for every ten pounds of green peanuts. For older, tougher peanuts, more salt may be needed so the nut will absorb enough salt to season your nuts. After extinguishing the flame the longer they set, the more salt will be absorbed.
   
6. Add other seasonings if you prefer. Here, sliced jalapeno peppers are added to give the finished peanuts a bit of heat. Garlic, either fresh or powder, liquid crab boil seasoning, chili powder, and other strong spices may be used as well.
   
7. Bring the contents to a boil. On the propane stove, you light the burner and turn the flame up high, on a cooktop, turn the burner to high until the water is rapidly boiling, then reduce the heat/flame so that it maintains a rolling boil without wasting excess heat.
   
8. Stir the peanuts about every 20-30 minutes, making sure the water has not boiled down. Covering the pot will reduce the amount of water evaporating from the pot, but will increase the risk of your pot boiling over while the peanuts cook.
   
9. After an hour or so, remove some of the peanuts with a slotted spoon and test (taste) them. Peanuts that have fully absorbed water will sink to the bottom of the pot. When they have become tender, and the nut falls from the shell when it is opened, the peanuts are done. Cooking may take as long as 2-10 hours, depending on the altitude.
   
10. Taste for saltiness. If you desire, before removing the nuts from the boiling water, additional salt can be added and the peanuts can continue to boil for another 30 minutes or so. Keep in mind that with the increased salinity of the water, and the additional boiling time, the already cooked peanuts can become too salty very quickly, so use caution at this stage.
    
11. Turn off the stove/burner when the peanuts are salty and tender enough to suit you. Drain away the excess water, being very careful not to scald or burn yourself while doing so, and place the boiled peanuts in a bowl to cool and enjoy, they are also great before being cooled.
    
12. Refrigerate or freeze leftover peanuts in zipper type freezer bags for later enjoyment. Remove frozen peanuts from the bag when you want to eat them, and warm them by heating for a minute in a microwave.
    

Tips

• Use the greenest peanuts you can get, they will cook more quickly, and yield a more tender snack. Very green peanuts, known as pops, can be eaten whole (shell and all) if they are thoroughly cleaned before cooking, but avoid eating too many.
  
• Invite friends, build a campfire, and break out a cooler full of ice cold beer to make your peanut boiling a true traditional event.
  
• Green peanuts can be frozen for boiling in the cooler months if doing so outdoors in August is just too much for you, but the results will not be as good.
  
• If you don't live in the area where green peanuts are easily found, you can order them online. They can be shipped fresh or frozen.[3]
  

Warnings

• Boiling water can cause serious burns. Use caution, and if the peanuts are boiled outside, keep close watch over the process.
  
• Many people are allergic to peanuts and peanut products, so be careful when eating them for the first time.
  

Things You'll Need

• Stove or outdoor burner (in the past, campfires were used)
  
• Large cast iron or stainless steel pot (lid preferred)
  
• Green peanuts
  
• Salt and additional seasonings
  
• Slotted spoon, and possibly a colander to strain the finished peanuts
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Cope With Allergies to Peanuts
  
• How to Remove Packing Peanuts Without the Mess
  
• How to Make Peanut Butter
  
• How to Make Honey Roasted Peanuts
  

Sources and Citations

1. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiled_peanuts


2. ↑ http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jafcau/2007/55/i22/html/jf071877l.html


3. ↑ http://greenpeanuts.net/

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Boil Green Peanuts. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Take High Dynamic Range Photographs - wikiHow

Take High Dynamic Range Photographs - wikiHow

How to Take High Dynamic Range Photographs

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Have you ever seen those hyper-real and ultra-contrasty photos and wondered how they're done? A normal digital camera sensor cannot capture all the detail in a scene -- some parts will usually end up over-exposed (which will lose, for example, cloud detail), or some parts might be under-exposed -- i.e. it has a low dynamic range. However, by taking three different shots, merging them (into a high dynamic range image), then employing some digital trickery to reduce the dynamic range without noticeably losing detail (called tone mapping), you can bring out all the details in a scene. Here's how.

Steps

Taking Your Photographs

1. Choose your scene. HDR will often bring out the best in any scene, so this is up to you. If you're out of ideas, search Flickr to see what other people have done in HDR. Failing that, find a scene with plenty of cloud; HDR photos bring out a stunning amount of cloud detail.
   
2. Set up your camera. Put your camera on a tripod if you have one; find a solid surface to rest it on if you don't. If you have a remote release for your camera, all the better; you could also use a short self-timer if you don't. Whatever you use, it is very important that the camera does not move between shots. If your camera has automatic exposure bracketing, then use it (this is called AEB on the menus on Canon cameras). Setting AEB to -2/+2 EV is usually okay, but experiment to see what works best for you.
   
3. Take your photographs. If you have set up AEB on your camera, then just fire off three shots in a row. If you don't have AEB, then take a photo, adjust the shutter speed one or two stops faster (i.e. if you're at 1/250 sec, go to 1/500 or 1/1000 sec), take a photo, then adjust it one or two stops slower than your original shutter speed (i.e. if you were at 1/250 sec, then set it to 1/125 or 1/60 sec), and take another photo. You will now have three photographs: one overexposed, one underexposed, and one normal.
   
4. Go home, and copy your photographs to your computer. You will now create and tone-map an HDR image from the three photographs you just took.
   

Creating and Tone-Mapping an HDR Image

1. Download and install qtpfsgui. There are other programs for the purpose, but qtpfsgui is free, open source, and works on many platforms (Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X).
   
2. Run qtpfsgui and click "New Hdr". In the window that pops up, click "Load Images" and browse for the three photographs you just took. qtpfsgui should automatically determine the exposure value from the EXIF metadata in the image; if it cannot (for example, if there is no aperture set in the EXIF data, for those using old lenses with a DSLR via an adapter), you will have to set it yourself. Click "Next".
   
3. Ignore the next window that comes up. Just click through it by hitting "Next"; you probably won't want to bother with anything therein.
   
4. Ignore the window after that, too. Again, these parameters do have some effect, but the defaults are usually pretty sensible. Hit Finish. You now have a high dynamic range image, but not one that can be displayed in a low dynamic range format (like the universal JPEG format). This is where tone-mapping comes in: compressing the dynamic range of the image you have created so that a 24-bit format like JPEG can appear to have more dynamic range than it really does.
   
5. Tone-map the HDR image. Hit the "Tonemap the Hdr" button in the toolbar. A window will pop up with a slightly bewildering array of tone mapping algorithms and parameters. For the most part, the Mantiuk algorithm (which is the first one shown) does a very good job. But you may want to play with the others as well. Hit "Apply" to tone-map the image.
   
6. Start small. Experiment with algorithms and their parameters on a reduced-size version of your image (you can pick a smaller one from the dropdown box of different sizes near the top left). Tone-mapping is a very mathematically demanding operation; the Mantiuk algorithm can take many minutes to render a photo at full size on slower computers, but only a few seconds to process a 256x170 version of the same.
   
7. Save your image. Go to File -> Save as... Under "File name", be sure to give your file a jpg extension.
   
8. Optionally, post-process your image a little. You'll need Adobe Photoshop, or its free and open-source alternative GIMP, or photo editing software of your choice. Fix the colour/white balance (this should not be done with photos before creating your HDR image, as it can have weird effects). Applying subtle amounts of "Unsharp mask" can be a very good thing. You may also have weird ghosting artifacts that you will want to edit out.
   

Things You'll Need

• A camera with either automatic exposure bracketing, manual exposure compensation, or manual shutter speed control. All digital SLRs worth their salt will have these features, and many point-and-shoot cameras will have the former feature, too. You don't even necessarily need a digital camera for this; as long as you're able to set the shutter speed manually, you can use a film camera.[1]
  
• A tripod, if you have one, or a solid surface to rest on if you do not. A remote release is handy, too, if you're using very long exposures, but not essential.
  
• qtpfsgui. There is other software that can do the same thing, but qtpfsgui is free, open source, and very effective.
  
• Optionally, your favourite photo editing software; GIMP is free, though allegedly more difficult to use than most.
  

Sources and Citations

1. ↑ See Flickr search results for "hdr film".

• The qtpfsgui home page.
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Take High Dynamic Range Photographs. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Centrfugal Force

Surge

Alas, the surge is over.
Gone are the days when the picture of the fat wonder woman graced the first page of Google Image Search.

Will I ever taste such glory again?