This sauce is the base for many Spanish dishes known as ‘salsa de nueces‘, and it is proper rustic cooking with traditional and rustic techniques. I suppose back in the day they used nuts and bread to make sauces because it was economical, but it makes for a deeply rich and tasty base for most stews. Traditionally this sauce is the base for a meat dish but it is a wonderful and rich sauce regardless that can be enjoyed without the need of meat.
I usually make this with meat-free meatballs and it provides a rich sauce with deep flavours. You can also have this with any other meat-free protein after all the sauce is rich enough to carry most if not all meat substitutes. In this recipe I use a combination of walnuts and almonds, although this is also made with just walnuts, or just almonds. The choice is yours really, I think both have a wonderful taste with my personal preference being walnuts because they have a richer flavour.
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Pin recipe Ingredients
- 6 tbsp olive oil
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 cup of peeled almonds
- 1 cup of walnuts
- 1 bay leaf
- 40 g bread (stale if possible)
- bunch of parsley
- 1 large onion
- 300 g plum tomatoes (or 1 tin)
- 125 ml white wine
- 1 tsp yeast extract (Marmite), optional
- 1 tsp miso paste, optional
- 6 tbsp olive oil
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 cup of peeled almonds
- 1 cup of walnuts
- 1 bay leaf
- 1½ oz bread (stale if possible)
- bunch of parsley
- 1 large onion
- 10½ oz plum tomatoes (or 1 tin)
- ½ cup white wine
- 1 tsp yeast extract (Marmite), optional
- 1 tsp miso paste, optional
Instructions
- Add about 4 tbsp of olive oil to a frying pan and warm to a medium heat. Add the cloves of garlic, peeled and whole, together with the peeled almonds and a bay leaf.
- Sauté until the almonds and garlic are lightly golden, this takes a couple of minutes. Remove the garlic and almonds and place on a bowl.
- Add the walnuts and bread cut into cubes and gently fry for a couple of minutes until the bread is crispy and the walnuts are lightly toasted.
- Remove these and place in the bowl with the almonds.
- Finely chop a small bunch of parsley and add to the oil. Be sure to cover this as it will spit everywhere and sauté for a couple of minutes, remove and add to the bowl.
- Dice a large onion and add another 2 tbsp of olive oil to the pan and sauté the onion. When this is soft add about the chopped tomatoes (or about 1 tin) and reduce for a few minutes.
- Mix all the ingredients together (the almonds, walnuts, bread, onion and tomato etc) and blend with the of white wine. Traditionally you can use a pestle and mortar, but who has time for that? It doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth though.
- Add the sauce to a deep pan, and for a savoury umami punch add the yeast extract and miso paste. This is the non traditional part but it gives it depth of flavour.
- Cook on a medium heat for about 10 minutes and season to taste. The sauce is now ready.
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