I was lucky enough to be given a bag full of fresh walnuts
recently, from a friend who doesn’t like them, and nor does her husband. Short of uprooting their walnut tree and
planting it in a pot on our balcony, accepting them gratefully was the best I could
do. And I was so glad they’d ended up
with me. Creamy, sweet and savoury at
the same time, and yet with none of that oily bitterness that pre-packaged nuts
seem to end up with.
We don’t own a nutcracker, but even if we did I would have
been unable to find it in the midst of the move; experience has now taught me
it would have been in the very last box I looked in, so I resorted to the
bottom of a coffee jar, gleefully bashing the nuts then picking out
that delightful centre.
When I’d eaten my fill just as a snack, I wanted to
experience them as part of a meal. My
kitchen haul produced real autumnal ingredients; along with these nuts I had
the world’s largest cabbage, a good hunk of Kapiti blue cheese, pungent but not
palate-burningly strong, and the end of a box of Risoni pasta.
This was a real joy of a dinner – enough textural interest
from the walnuts and slippery-smooth pasta, background earthiness of the
cabbage and salty tang of the cheese. An
unintentionally well-balanced meal, that left me giving thanks for those odd
folk who don’t like fresh walnuts. Their
loss is definitely my gain.
Risoni with Walnuts
A recipe, if it can be called that, by myself
100g risoni pasta
Handful fresh walnuts
Handful shredded cabbage
1 tablespoon olive oil
20g blue cheese
2 tablespoons cream
In a large pan of salted, boiling water, cook the risoni according to the instructions on the packet.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Saute the cabbage until it is just done and retains some crunch (although I have admitted to my love of overcooked cabbage, this is not the place for it).
When the pasta is cooked, reserve half a cup of the cooking water, drain the pasta, then tip it into the pan with the cabbage, keeping it over a low heat. Stir through the cream, half the cheese and the walnuts, adding as much reserved pasta water as is needed to bring the sauce together.
Serve, sprinkling over the rest of the cheese.
Serves 1
It is great being given a gift that then turns into a tasty dish. You could also have considered Waldorf Salad, Coffee Cream and Walnut Cake or Date and Walnut Cake (the list is endless). I love walnuts and I'm not sure I would have had any left over for cooking had I been the recipient of such a gift.
ReplyDeleteSo many times when you were growing up you would have had meals or desserts made from such gifts and these, for me, are right up there with the meals we remember with such fondness.