Pesto Genovese
Pesto Genovese is a Ligurian uncooked basil sauce pounded with garlic, pine nuts, salt, hard cheeses and olive oil, traditionally made in a mortar.
Salsa di noci
Walnut sauce · Ligurian walnut sauce
Salsa di noci is a cold Ligurian sauce of walnut kernels, garlic, marjoram, soaked bread, cheese and olive oil, served with pansoti.
A walnut sauce for pansoti
Salsa di noci is a cold Ligurian condiment, most often served over pansoti, the filled pasta of the region. It is thick, pale and creamy, and it is more mellow than pesto: the walnuts give body and a faint bitterness that the sauce's garlic and herbs balance. Corzetti and chestnut pasta are also named as partners.
The sauce is an emulsion built on walnut kernels, garlic, olive oil and a soaked bread that holds the fat. The bread-and-milk paste works as the emulsifier, and the cheese adds acidity. The page for the sauce insists that the local curd cheese and Ligurian oil are the true components, and that seed oils and substitutes change the result.
Mortar, order and heat
The traditional method uses a marble mortar and a wooden pestle, with rotary motion that breaks the walnut cells without overheating the fat. Ingredients go in order: garlic with salt, then the walnuts, then the soaked bread, then oil and dairy. The order matters because the bread and oil must be worked into a paste that holds together.
Food processors and blenders are common now, but the source warns that high-speed blades can overheat the fats and cause oxidation, which brings bitterness. Short pulses in a cold bowl are the suggested remedy.
Origin
The sauce is linked to the medieval agliata, a garlic sauce that the Genoese trading network carried along its routes. Adding walnuts and milk in place of vinegar is said to have tamed the garlic. These are historians' accounts rather than dated records, and the walnut sauce's exact first date is not established.
History
Salsa di noci is said to descend from the medieval agliata, a garlic sauce made with breadcrumbs and vinegar, to which walnuts and milk were added in Liguria. The history rests on the Republic of Genoa's trade contacts; the sources offer that as a reasoned account, not as dated documentary proof of the walnut sauce.
Ingredients
Walnut kernelsTraditionally blanched to remove the skins, which removes the tannins and leaves the sauce ivory-white.
No quantity given.
GarlicVessalico garlic is preferred for its digestibility and delicate aroma.
No quantity given.
MarjoramPersa marjoram, the only herb in the canonical recipe.
Amount not stated
BreadWhite breadcrumbs soaked in milk; they act as the emulsifier.
Amount not stated
To soak the bread.
CheesePrescinseua, a fresh curd cheese, gives the acidity the page says cream or Parmesan cannot match.
Amount not stated
Extra virgin olive oilLigurian extra virgin olive oil; the page does not recommend seed oil.
Amount not stated
Method
- Pound the garlic with salt in a marble mortar.
- Add the blanched walnut kernels and work them to a paste with a rotary motion.
- Add the bread soaked in milk, then the cheese and the herb.
- Trickle in the olive oil while working the sauce to a thick emulsion.
Places
Liguria
Traditional preparation · Region evidenceRecognised as a traditional Ligurian product on the national list of traditional agri-food products, as the page reports.
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Sources
WikipediaMethod · History · Ingredients
Salsa di nociIngredients: walnut kernels, Vessalico garlic, marjoram, breadcrumbs soaked in milk, prescinseua, Ligurian extra virgin olive oil.
Traditional method in a marble mortar; modern food processors risk heat and bitterness.
Precursor agliata; walnuts and milk replaced vinegar.
Pansoti pairing; corzetti and chestnut pasta as uses.
Recognised as a traditional product on the national list.