Walnut sauce for pasta
Walnut sauce for pasta is a Ligurian speciality made in much the same way as pesto using walnuts instead of pine nuts and marjoram, mint or parsley instead of basil.
When the first walnuts of the year arrive, the noci verdi are sold as something special – much like the first green almonds. Yet they don’t have a lot of taste and the fleshy membrane grows black and mouldy, if you don’t use them immediately. For this recipe I stick to the characteristic, older walnuts that have been dried properly, and mostly I don’t bother to rub off the skin even though it does give the sauce a rather dull brown colour.
In Liguria, walnut sauce for pasta is mostly served in a cheesy dairy version a bit like besciamella. Not my favourite. This is a pure nutty version, a bit like a salad dressing, a pesto or a lemon sauce with a nice crunchy texture.
Ingredients
100 g walnuts
1 tbsp fresh white bread crumbs
1 clove of garlic
Fresh oregano
Olive oil, salt, pepper
Preparation
Roast the walnuts in the oven and rub off the brown skin
Blend, chop or pestle all the ingredients finely into a thick sauce
Serve the walnut sauce with fresh homemade ravioli or use Ligurian pansotti that can be bought ready made.
This sounds so good!
It is – even if its so simple it hardly deserves being put in writing.
Yes, walnut sauce recipe for pasta is wonderful and healthy!
Indeed:)
this looks so good bookmarked
Thanks:)
We must both be thinking of walnuts at the same time! My recent blogpost is all about ‘walnut love’ and the sauce recipe link is a bit different to yours, but both delicious I bet. https://ambradambra.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/lurking-in-the-cupboard-nutcracker-the-utensil-not-the-ballet-2/
Oh yes – that’s the milky version I mention.
This sounds great. I already eat a half dozen or so of those dried older walnuts each morning for my heart health. Would be really neat to eat them in a recipe! :)
Thanks for calling attention to the super food qualities of walnuts. Gives me an excuse for eating even more of them.