I made some acorn oil! I rendered it by simmering water oak acorn meats until oil floated to the top, and then skimmed it off. The acorns in the bowl on the right are the ones i boiled to get the oil; not super efficiently, honestly. Probably some oil left in them. It's definitely possible to get it by boiling, as has been done for thousands of years by Native Americans, but i have only the internet and trial & error to decode the method
Hours of cracking, shelling, boiling, skimming, and everything in between until i got the above; probably just over a tablespoon of oil! I tried to filter it using coffee filters, but they kept breaking. So i just accepted the debris in the end:
I added it to some squash, that also had some wild onions sauteed in canola oil and a pinch of sugar. The squash just had salt and the oil added to it, but nothing else I didn't want to obscure the taste with seasonings this time
I usually make squash browner than this, but i didn't want to scorch the acorn oil (it will burn at high heat like olive oil). It didn't taste bitter, since tannins are water-soluble and don't dissolve in oil. (although i also tried to sautee some boiled, new-growth smilax root in the remaining oil... that was the most bitter thing ive ever tasted x-x) But for the acorn oil specifically, it definitely tasted like acorns!! I would love to experiment with bigger amounts of it, since i still can't describe in detail how it tastes.
Tumblr doesn't seem to let me link offsite right now, but from what ive gathered, it's comparable in nutrition to "luxury" oils like olive/sunflower/safflower, and even exceeds it in some ways!
If you go to foragerchef. com/ acorn-oil, and scroll down to click on the info source link, it shows a study that has charts of nutrition info (as well as a story about a failed attempt to get acorn oil through boiling) provided by a guy who now presses acorns to get their oil!
Lots of trial and error behind this, but a success nonetheless!
