LIFE: Awww, Nuts

SARONNO, Italy – Now here is a perfect example of why it took Italy more than 2,000 years to unite. Last week I posted a recipe for nut sauce (http://thisitalianlife.blogspot.com/2012/02/auntie-pasta-nuts-to-you.html) that was credited to Bartolomeo Stefani, chef to the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua. It was a typical Renaissance dish served in the princely court of Mantua. 

Freshly Peeled Walnuts

I don’t remember saying that the Mantua nut sauce was the ONLY nut sauce in Italy, and so I don’t know what the Ligurians  are so worked up about. Everyone knows that the Ligurian nut sauce is way older than the Mantua nut sauce, which may make it the first nut sauce developed on these shores. The key word is may. 

 Sicilian Nut Pesto and Pesto Rosso

If you do an internet search for “nut sauce” you’ll find more than one web site offering recipes for nut sauce including http://www.makepesto.com/classics/sicilian-nut-pesto/ which offers a nut and basil pesto recipe which is even more stripped down than mine. Here, take a look.

Sicilian Nut Pesto

Ingredients: 

1 bunch basil, leaves picked
1 – 2 cloves garlic, peeled & chopped
1 cup cashews
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
squeeze lemon

Whiz together in a food processor. Eat.

They even call their sauce “pesto” which rankles the Ligurians no end. Truth be known any sauce that you make by pounding the beejeebers out of a bunch of ingredients can legitimately be called “pesto” since pesto comes from the verb “pestare” which means to pound.

Except for the fact that the Sicilian nut pesto recipe calls for cashews, which don’t grow in Italy, the connecting thread for all of these nut sauces is that when they were developed at a time when people made food out of whatever ingredients they found in their area. If they were rich, like the Gonzaga Dukes, they could afford to add exotic bits like cinnamon and nutmeg and jazz the dishes up a bit but otherwise they were limited to what grew outside their door. Think about it, if you walked out your door today and tried to put together a meal using what you found growing about your house or apartment, how successful would that be?

For me it would mean a gloppy soup of chopped grass and boiled twigs. Not particularly appetizing, so I give the Italians a lot of credit for what they managed to do with a handful of nuts.

For the sake of equality of all, here’s the Ligurian recipe,  “Tocco de nux”, which is delicious served with Genovese pansotti (little bellies), a Ligurian version of ravioli.

Ligurian Tocco de Nux

Ingredients

Garlic  - 1 clove  

Milk - 250 ml

Marjoram – small bunch of fresh

Walnuts – 250 grams

Extra virgin olive oil – ½ glass

Crustless bread – 40 grams

Parmigiano Reggiano cheese – 40 grams

Pine nuts – 30 grams

Salt q.b. (you know this means to taste, right?)

First blanch the walnuts in boiling water for about 5 minutes (1), or long enough that the skins peels off easily. After 5 minutes, drain the nuts and let them cool.  In the meantime cube the crustless bread and put it in a bowl along with the milk (2) and when the bread has absorbed the milk squeeze them and set them aside, saving the milk.(3).   

 Peel the walnuts one by one (4) and put them in a food processor (or pestle), together with the pine nuts, garlic, paremesan cheese (5) and the oil (6) .  

Add the bread, sprinkle in the marjoram (7) and whiz together adding a little milk (you can use the milk you soaked the bread in), and mix until the cream is dense (8) then add the salt. The nut sauce (9) is now ready to serve over plain pasta, ravioli (not meat filled) or pansotti.  

Note: It’s a lot easier to just buy already peeled walnuts, which is the way all packaged walnuts are sold.

AUNTIE PASTA: Nuts to You

SARONNO, Italy – The mud slides and floods that have devastated Liguria, and in particular the Cinque Terre, this week, got me thinking about the unique cuisine, a cucina povera, that is also part of the cultural heritage of this area. One of the most delicious dishes that developed in Liguria is pansotti with nut sauce. Nut sauce is simply a combination of crushed nuts, milk soaked bread and a few flavor enhancers like garlic and marjoram. 

Ligurian Nut Sauce

If you have traveled around Italy you know how different the food can be from one region to another. You probably already know that you won’t find Tuscan specialties like pappa di pomodoro (see Auntie Pasta: Viva la Pappa 6/2/2011), or saltless Tuscan bread in Turin, nor will you find Piedmontese specialties like bagna caộda or raviolini del plin with fonduta (see Auntie Pasta: Restaurants of Turin, 9/9/2010) in Florence. 

Given that the regional cuisines developed around the raw materials that were available, in my humble opinion the Ligurians, who had the least to work with, a few herbs and nuts and olive oil, ended up with one of the best cuisines in Italy. Salsa di noci, (nut sauce) known as Tocco de nux in Genovese dialect, is a perfect example. Here’s the simple, but delicious recipe. 

Salsa di Noci

1 glove of garlic

250 ml of whole milk

Marjoram, (one stem of fresh is best but a sprinkle of dried marjoram is ok too.)

250 grams of walnuts

½ wine glass of olive oil

40 grams of soft, white bread (no crusts) cut into small cubes

40 grams of Parmigiano Reggiano

30 grams of pine nuts (optional)

Salt (q.b. quanto basta or - to taste)

To make the nut sauce (1) first blanch the nuts in boiling water for at least 5 minutes so they are easier to peel. Then drain them and let them cool. In the meantime  (2) put the cut up bread in a bowl and cover with the milk, and (3) when they have absorbed the milk, squeeze them dry and put them in another dish, keeping the milk apart.

Peel the nuts, one by one (4) and put them in a blender (or in a pestle if you are using a mortar and pestle), together with the pine nuts, garlic, cheese (5) and oil (6).

Add the soggy bread and the marjoram (7) and whiz it all together in the blender adding a little milk (from the milk you set aside)  if needed, until the mixture is creamy and dense (8), then add salt.  The nut sauce (9) is then ready to use.  

If you are using a mortar and pestle, be sure to pound the mixture energetically, adding a little oil or milk (the milk you set aside earlier). You can also save yourself a little work by buying already peeled walnuts in the grocery store. If you are not fond of garlic just leave it out.  While this recipe is not exactly like the original, it still very good. 

Pansotti with Salsa di Noci

 Salsa di noci is most often served with pansotti alla Genovese which are a type of ravioli filled with a mix of herbs and a bit of ricotta.  

If you read this blog with any regularity you know that everything you eat and eat with here in Italy, has a story behind it, and salsa di noci is no different. It seems the sauce was invented by Ligurian farmers to go with their pansotti, a ravioli that was given this odd name because it is a little paunchy, or ‘un po panciuta’.

In the past, pansotti were filled with whatever herbs and vegetables the farmers had at their disposal. It was never the same and so the combination – whatever it was – became known as ‘preboggion’. Pregoggion could be made up of whatever herbs were in season like Swiss chard, borragine,  pimpinella,  dente di cane,  raperonzolo, l'ortica,  cicerbita and parsley. And other than the Swiss chard, dandelion and parsley, I don’t have a clue what the others are.

Borragine

As for the nut sauce, you can put it on almost any type of small, vegetarian ravioli. It will keep in the frig for a couple of days, but not much longer. If it gets too thick, thin it with a few drops of milk. 

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