Intxaursalsa, Basque Walnut and Cinnamon Cream
Intxaursalsa, sometimes written intxaursaltsa, is the walnut cream that closes a Basque Christmas Eve dinner. The name means walnut sauce, and at its plainest it is nothing more than ground walnuts cooked down in plant milk with cinnamon until thick. The usual recipe leans on a good deal of sugar and often dairy, but a handful of dates blended into the soy milk carries the sweetness with fiber attached, and the walnuts themselves give up enough richness to thicken the pot without any dairy. Toast the nuts first, grind them to a meal rather than a butter, and keep the heat low and the spoon moving so nothing catches. Walnuts are calorie dense, so this is a small-bowl dessert, an accent to a meal rather than the center of one. Serve it warm the first night and cold from the fridge the next.
Ingredients
- 1 cup Walnuts
- 2 1/2 cups Unsweetened soy milk
- 4 wholes Medjool dates, pitted
- 1 stick Ceylon cinnamon
- 1 whole Lemons, zest in wide strips
Method
- Toast the walnuts in a dry pan over medium heat until they smell warm and the skins darken a shade, about 5 minutes. Toasting drives off the raw, tannic edge and deepens the walnut flavor that carries the whole dessert. Set a few aside to chop for the top.
- Grind the rest of the walnuts to a coarse meal in a blender or processor. Do not run it to a paste, or the natural oil separates and turns the cream greasy; you want a rubbly meal that will melt into the soy milk.
- Blend the dates with 1/2 cup of the soy milk (120 ml) until smooth. This is the sweetener, and blending it first means the date sugars disperse evenly instead of sinking and scorching on the pan bottom.
- Simmer the remaining soy milk with the cinnamon stick and lemon zest for 5 minutes to infuse, then pull out the zest. Ceylon cinnamon is milder and more floral than cassia and does not overpower the walnut, which is the point of using a stick rather than ground.
- Stir in the ground walnuts and the date paste. Cook gently, stirring almost constantly, until it thickens to the texture of loose pudding and coats the spoon, about 12 minutes. The walnut meal both flavors and thickens it, so there is no need for cream or starch. Pull the cinnamon stick.
- Divide into bowls, scatter the reserved chopped walnuts over the top, and serve warm, or chill it and serve cold. It sets firmer in the fridge and keeps three days.
Nutrition
Estimated per serving: 245 calories, 7 g protein, 4 g fiber, 40 mg sodium. Computed from USDA FoodData Central reference values for the main ingredients. This is an approximation, not a laboratory measurement. How these are computed.
Cost per serving is estimated from US national-average retail prices for cheap staple forms, using BLS dried-bean prices and USDA produce prices. Prices vary by store and season, so treat it as a guide, not a receipt. How this is computed.
