Yesterday I shared some interesting facts about walnuts that I learned while at the Walnut Harvest in California. More exciting than that, were all the great meals and fun experiences we had.
The festival started off with a bang on Thursday night. Chef Michael Tuohy from The Grange Restaurant in Sacramento prepared a private dinner for our group that was absolutely delicious! But before dinner began, we had the opportunity to watch Chef Tuohy and renowned cookbook author Mollie Katzen in action, preparing pesto using none other than walnuts. When you see pesto on a menu you most likely think of the combination of basil, pine nuts, and Parmesan cheese. However, this combination of ingredients is not the definition of pesto. In fact, pesto is Italian for “to pound, to crush,” the action that is done in making a pesto sauce. So basically any combination of ingredients that is made into a paste can be called a pesto. While these days most people use food processors to make pesto (and other sauces), traditionally pesto was made with a mortar and pestle. The California Walnut Board wanted us to have the true experience, so they generously provided us with mortars and pestles (that we got to keep!) to make our own pesto.
Mollie and Chef Tuohy first showed us how to make Mollie’s Walnut Pesto, using fresh basil leaves, garlic, walnuts, extra virgin olive oil, and Parmesan cheese. This looked very similar to the traditional pesto, the only difference being the use of walnuts instead of pine nuts. While they passed around samples of their delicious pesto, we each got to work on making Chef Tuohy’s Walnut Pesto, which was quite different from the traditional version. Using the mortar and pestle we pounded together ground walnuts, shallots, Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, grated white Cheddar (close in taste to a Pecorino), fresh sage, and salt and pepper. The end result was a white pesto that looked almost like oatmeal in texture. It was unbelievably good, and lucky for me it was the sauce on my main dish that evening!
Tomorrow I’ll fill you in on Chef Tuohy’s walnut-inspired dinner.
Have you ever made pesto? What do you put in your version?
nutritioulicious™ 