Almond meal. Yun Huang Yong / flickr / 2007 / CC BY 2.0
Nut meal is almost the same as “nut flour“, but whereas “nut flour” is used to describe nuts ground to a fine powder, for a nut meal, the nuts are ground a bit more coarsely, but not as coarse as “finely chopped nuts.” It is about the coarseness of cornmeal (or polenta.)
Nut flours are often drier, because they are usually ground from dried cakes of nut that remain after nuts have been pressed to make oil out of them.
Meals are ground from whole nuts, so they’ll be oiler.
Cooking Tips
To make your own nut meal at home:
- You can mix the nuts you use, such as walnuts and pecans;
- Toast first to develop the flavour;
- (if you have time) freeze them;
- then pulse them (ideally frozen) in a food processor. Freezing them gives you a better chance of their not turning into a paste on you, though if you are are determined and over-process them you can still end up with a paste.
Storage Hints
Store in refrigerator, as it goes rancid even more quickly if you do not. For longer storage, freeze.