Sunflower Seed

*********************************************************************************

Sunflower Seed Brine

Sunflowers can be enjoyed au naturelle or mixed into a wide range of dishes, breads, candy and deserts. Using a sunflower seed brine to add some additional taste to the sunflower seed is very popular and also one of the easiest ways of adding a little extra sting to your sunflowers.

If you have collected the seeds directly from the sunflower, you begin by placing them unshelled in a large bowl. Fill the bowl with cold water and gently stir the sunflower seeds until dirt and other undesirable things have been removed from the seeds. Heavy particles will fall to the bottom of the bowl and you can easily scoop up the floating sunflower seeds

If you plan to store your sunflower seeds after preparing them with the sunflower seed brine, you should ideally use roasted sunflower seeds since roasted seeds keep longer. You can easily roast your own sunflower seeds before you place them in the sunflower seed brine. Spread out your sunflowers in a single layer and place them in the oven for approximately 10 minutes at 275 degrees C. It is important only to roast one single layer at the time. Let the seeds cool of and store them in a cool and try place until your ready to prepare them with the sunflower seed brine.

You don’t have to roast your sunflower seeds before you use the sunflower seed brine; it’s just a way of adding to their life time. If you now that you will gulp down the delicious sunflower seeds in not time, roasting is optional. Some people do however like the slightly change of taste that can be obtained by roasting seeds before they are soaked in the sunflower seed brine. This sunflower seed brine can of course also be used for commercially prepared sunflower seeds; toasted as well as raw ones. If you do not roast the shells, you should ideally dry them before placing them in the sunflower seed brine.

Sunflower seed lovers all over the world all have their own recipes and techniques when it comes to preparing a sunflower seed brine. This is one example of a popular sunflower seed brine that will produce moderately salted kernels:

Fill a bowl with 1 litre of water.
Add 2 dl of salt and stir. You don’t need to get any special type of salt; regular table salt will do nicely.
Add the sunflower seeds and let them soak overnight.
Remove the seeds from the brine and let them dry.
Store in a dry and cool place, or enjoy immediately!

If your sunflower seeds are shelled, the seed brine is not necessary since you can simply add salt directly to the seeds. The brine is a way for the salt to reach inside of the shells so that you can enjoy salted kernels once you have opened up the shell. If you want to salt shelled sunflower seeds, you can help the salt stick to the seed by coating the seed with some form of oil, e.g. non-stick cooking spray or sunflower oil.