Instructions

1. Grind the macadamias and the flax together rather than one after the other. Macadamias are soft and oily and worked on their own they turn to butter in about twenty seconds.
2. Crush the sage between your palms first. The leaves are furry and stiff, and a whole one survives the processor as a grey speck with no scent left in it.
3. Add the water in small amounts until the mixture holds when squeezed. Go too far and the dough spreads out to nothing on the sheet, and there is no taking water back out.
4. Push it across the drying sheet at an even depth with a wet palm. Nut dough tears rather than spreads, so work outwards from the middle instead of dragging it.
5. Drizzle the oil over and scatter the salt while the surface is still wet enough to hold them. Oil brushed on afterwards sits on top and tastes raw.
6. Dry at 43 °C for 12 hours, scoring the slab into squares the moment a line stops closing over. Score too early and the cuts heal; too late and the sheet shatters.
7. Turn the crackers as soon as they will lift in one piece. Macadamia oil pools underneath, and that face stays pale and soft until it is exposed.
8. Start testing well before the time is up — this is a fatty dough and it runs faster than a seed cracker. A finished one, cooled on the bench, breaks with a clean click instead of bending.
9. Keep them in a tin for a fortnight at room temperature, or a month in the fridge. Stale macadamia does not smell mouldy, it tastes of crayon, and the fridge is what buys you the extra weeks.