Walnuts sauce is the condiment par excellence of Ligurian pasta called pansoti. The original recipe is strictly without cream and involves the use of bread soaked in milk. In Genoa most of the restaurants offer in the menu pansoti with walnut sauce, considered a real workhorse like pasta with pesto and Genoese ravioli with “tuccu” sauce. It is possible to buy ready-made walnut sauce in delis and rotisseries, in fresh pasta shops and also in supermarkets, but we strongly recommend preparing it at home because it is easy to make.
This tasty vegetarian sauce is prepared with a blender or marble mortar, the same used to prepare pesto: the texture must be creamy. In addition to pansoti, it can be used trofie, dry pasta or to fill croutons.
Walnuts sauce, the Genoese recipe
- 1 lb walnuts
- crumb of 4 pieces bread
- half clove of garlic
- milk
- grated parmisan
- marjoram
- 5 tablespoons of oil
- salt
Put the bread crumbs to soak in milk; in the blender or in the mortar insert the nuts, garlic, salt and the crumb that must be well moist. Add the marjoram and the parmesan cheese, start mixing the ingredients, then add the olive oil and if necessary a bit of milk: the consistency should be creamy but not too thick. Season the pasta raw, without cooking the nut sauce. With these doses are seasoned over half 1 lb of pansoti.
