Fresh walnut sauce (dairy-free) 150g

Walnut sauce is a traditional cream used in Genoa to season pansoti, the typical local tortelli, and many other fresh pasta dishes: the original Ligurian recipe for walnut sauce calls for the walnut kernels to be pounded in a mortar with garlic, breadcrumbs soaked in milk, oil and salt; although it is a pounded sauce, in the city it is not known as walnut pesto but at most as walnut sauce.

Our walnut sauce is breadless and dairy-free, and can therefore be diluted as desired (with wet breadcrumbs or prescinseua) before seasoning the pasta. Our solution of a sauce of only shelled walnut kernels, olive oil, garlic, fresh marjoram, and salt leaves you free to decide on the final result of the preparation.

The history of Genovese walnut sauce

How did it happen that an exotic fruit, originating in the Himalayan regions, and of which there is no local cultivation in Liguria, became the main ingredient of one of the most traditional Genoese sauces?

To find the first traces of this sauce, we have to go back to the time of the Maritime Republic, when Genoa was - along with Venice - the leading player in the Mediterranean in trade with the East: everything passed through Genoa, the true world trading point for goods in the Middle Ages. Thus, although walnuts were a sought-after and expensive commodity, since they were imported on the ships of Genoese merchants, they were easily found in the city's emporiums, which was a sign of the city's wealth and a boast for the Republic. The wide diffusion of the fruit led to the development of an original recipe for walnut sauce (historical variants are documented from the Balkans to Persia) which was then used to season pasta, pasta which had meanwhile been imported by the Arabs and which immediately became one of the most popular foods in the city (either bought dried from outside the region or produced locally by the many vermicella shops that animated the flourishing pasta industry in Genoa, one of the most important at the time along with those of the Neapolitans and Sicilians).

Walnut sauce: how is it used and with which pasta?

Usually in Genoa, walnut sauce is used to season pansoti (which, for those of you who don't know them, are big, round ravioli with a vegetable filling). Walnut sauce, however, is a very versatile condiment that is used with many different types of pasta (both fresh and dry) thanks to its delicate flavour that goes well with many different flavours: Walnut sauce is excellent to season fresh pasta made with chestnut flour - such as trofie - and fresh avvantaggiata pasta; the term 'avvantaggiata' in Liguria means pasta with a semi-whole-wheat dough (erroneously, avvantaggiata is sometimes used to indicate pasta topped with potatoes and beans, but in reality avvantaggiata just means that there has been an addition of a whole-wheat flour to the dough). 

Since our walnut sauce is a base without bread and milk, you can decide whether to use it as it is or to dilute it with something else, depending on the recipe you want to make: so it is not compulsory to add bread soaked in milk or something milk-based (be it cream or prescinseua, the very fresh cheese from Genoa), as tradition dictates; you have complete freedom, outside the region walnut sauces are used in pastasciutte with bacon, sausage or radicchio!

The proportions for the recipe for traditional Genovese walnut sauce made with our starter are as follows: for a 150g jar of walnut sauce modo21 add 30g of breadcrumbs soaked in 70ml and 30g of grated Parmesan cheese (adjust salt to taste. You can season up to a kilo of stuffed pasta.

There are also variations of walnut sauce abroad (to which the Genoese version is most probably indebted) and these creams, which are widespread from the Balkans to Persia, are mainly used to accompany boiled meats and meat: in recent years, even in Italy walnut sauce is used with turkey rump (in the manner of vitello tonnato) and inside sandwiches and sandwiches.