Walnut sauce for Pasta

 

A stone in the Warsaaw Jewish cemetery shows squirrels eating nuts.  Image reproduced from A Tribe of Stones by Monika Krajewski

On Shanerabe (Hoshanah Rabah, The Great Hosanna) we traditionally eat the first walnuts of the year.  I might make spaghetti with string beans and walnut sauce.  The recipe appears in Yiddish here.  Sher's wonderful walnut sauce is here, and a vegan version is here.

Whole Wheat Spaghetti with String Beans and Walnut Sauce

1/2 pound whole wheat spaghetti
1 pound string beans
3-7 cloves garlic
1 1/2 cups walnuts
4 sprigs parsley, if you have some
salt and pepper

Cook the pasta and string beans in boiling, lavishly salted water.  the spaghetti and string beans will both be done at exactly the same moment.  There is some evidence of divine providence in the world.
Toast the walnuts in a medium oven for about fifteen minutes.
In a food processor, grind the garlic and toasted walnuts with parsley and salt and pepper to taste.  gradually add a few ladles of the pasta cooking water to the desired consistency.



In the original recipe, I called for Parmesan cheese, but in fact the sauce is absolutely delicious without it, and as it happens, the Italian kosher Parmigiano Reggiano on which I have become dependent all these years is not to be found anywhere, anywhere, anywhere and will not not be available until sometime in 2013!  "We're aging as fast as we can," the lady at the cheese counter assured me.

I have often said the same thing myself.

‏אַ גוט קװיטל ‏

a gut kvitl (greeting for shanerabe: a good receipt, a good conclusion)

השגחה-פּרטית

hashgokhe protis  divine providence