summer: March 2010 Archives

This delicious liqueur is traditionally made on 24th June, the day of St John the Baptist, when (at least in warm parts of Italy) walnuts are at the perfect point of (im)maturity.  This is my version of the recipe, based on that I learnt from the lovely Giulia Savini at her organic agriturismo, Valle Nuova.

We actually first made it in France, using Italian ‘pure’ alcohol and French walnuts picked in July.  In England I’m guessing the nuts definitely won’t be ready as early as 24th June.

The walnuts should still be just soft enough to cut through the whole thing (unpeeled) with a big heavy chef’s knife - cut notch then lift knife with walnut attached and whack down on board.  The nut revealed inside should be jelly or semi-jelly, with nuttiness just beginning to form.  They stain your hands and board like anti-theft capsules stain clothes.  Be warned.

If you can’t get pure alcohol (I don’t think it’s sold in the UK), use the strongest vodka you can find and reduce the amount of water in the sugar syrup by 500ml.

Note that your liqueur will taste horrible at first, good after a year, and delicious after two.  I’m yet to discover just how wonderful it gets after three years in the bottle…

Lacto-fermenting is another way of pickling.  Instead of using vinegar, you use a salt solution and wait for some special (naturally existing) bacteria to work their magic.  The gherkins retain more of their vitamins and there are other health benefits too.  More importantly, they don’t have that overpowering vinegary tang and taste delicious.

Here’s the science bit:  The salt solution favours the proliferation of lactic acid bacteria.  These bacteria (of which there are many species) ferment carbohydrates into lactic acid, carbon dioxide and other organic acids without the need for oxygen.  This turns the solution acidic and replaces the air at the top of the jar with carbon dioxide gas.  So, other (unwanted) bacteria will now not be able to reproduce. 

American recipe books will contain warnings, or not include this method of preserving at all.  But this kind of fermentation has been used across the world for centuries.  We came across plenty of food preserved this way on our culinary travels in 2008:  In Poland we loved the big barrels of gherkins and cabbage (ie sauerkraut); in Turkey we ate and drank yoghurt with everything we could; in Morocco our chicken tagines came with preserved lemons; in Mali we drank lots of millet beer; and in Ghana we filled up on fufu (fermented cassava and unripe plantain, pounded to a sticky stodge).