One of the most famous nuts eaten from Diwali, but are even harder to grow.

I remember I was opening a box for Diwali, it was Haldiram gift box set with some specialty snacks in there. 

And one of the wonderful snacks they gave out was the Foxnut package. It was lightly salted and popped fresh like it came out of the bag. They almost resembled popcorn, the air popped out with the white resembling 'fluffy cloud'. 

There were also black dots on top of it, they must have come from the popped nuts. 

Haldiram's 'Magic Makhana' Bag I ate.

I was very interested in finding out how they popped it so fresh and looked similar to popcorn, that I went on a Google search, particularly how its made on YouTube. So a video popped out. 

The video was interesting and how it was made was very detail-oriented. The farmer goes to the lake where he discovered the 'Prickly Water Lilies'. 

In the video, he picks up the branches that come from the lilies and pulls it up, uses a mesh basket and pulls the black seeds out, also known as Makhana (Foxnut). 

Then they collect all the bags of nuts, and puts it on the floor to have it smashed on the ground, scatters on the ground and collects it using a horn-shaped object, also known as a 'Gaanja'. (from the Makhana website), kinda similar to a 'Shofar'. 

Cleaning the nuts is easy too, they use the river water and to a quick wash before transferring it to the grading. This ensures the quality is fresh and easy to consume, and ready for popping. 

The popping commences, and the grading starts. From the website, this is how they grade it; '

Foxnuts

All processed seeds are sieved multiple times for grading. The grading  process includes different sizes of makhana seeds to pass through different sieving devices that are essentially rectangular iron plates , also known as ‘jharna’, in a few Indian states. The process becomes lengthy as all differently sized seeds are made to pass through up to 10 different sieves. These graded seeds are then stored safely in different packings. Grading of  seed enables uniform heating of each nut during roasting and it increases the efficiency of fox nut’s processing. There are generally two grades of seeds at the producer level- lawa  and thurri. While lawa is swollen and is white in colour with reddish spots, thurri is semi-popped, is hard and is reddish in colour.'

Pre-heating comes right after the grading. Some nuts heat up in cast iron plates and stirring up continuously for up to 250 - 3000 degrees Celsius in a hot steel pan. During the next three days, they need to be kept in a dark storage, this helps loosen the hard coat. 

Right afterwards, they will roast and temper the seeds after they dried, they use a high temperature point with a cast iron pan. Usually for a quick second. After they cool off, (this is where it gets interesting) they clean, and hammered with a wooden object to break into white puffs. 

Then they polish and gets sent to the consumer in bags.

Here is the video of the process on how they make foxnuts:

References:

https://www.makhana.org/makhana-growers/processing-of-makhana

https://www.makhana.org/makhana-growers/grading-of-makhana