This stew will teach you about walnuts

Using chopped nuts to thicken and add nutrition to sauces and stews is common across many cuisines around the world. There are West African stews featuring ground peanuts, nutty Italian pesto sauces, and Indian dishes made creamy with ground cashews, to name a few.

In Georgia, (the country not the state), many traditional dishes are enriched with ground walnuts, including lobio nigvzit, a stew in which chopped walnuts are simmered with beans, aromatic spices, herbs, and tart fruit juice and/or sauce. This recipe is my spin on that dish — it departs quite a bit from the traditional but captures its exciting core flavors in a bright, weeknight-friendly way.

Using canned kidney beans makes the stew ultrafast and convenient. Once rinsed and drained, the beans are simmered with toasted, chopped walnuts, sautéed onion and garlic, ground coriander, pomegranate juice and broth until the mixture is saucy and thickened but the beans and nuts retain their texture. (If you want the sauce a bit thicker you can mash some of the beans in the pot with a spoon, and if you want it looser you can add some more broth or water.)

A brightening splash of red wine vinegar, and chopped fresh parsley and cilantro are stirred in at the end, and the stew is served topped vibrantly with more herbs and a pop of juicy, sweet-tart pomegranate seeds.

It’s a colorful, filling meal layered with flavor and brimming with nutrients, a dish that feels both familiar and excitingly new at the same time, and it highlights one way of the many ways nuts can be used: not just as a crunchy garnish but as a key ingredient.

Using canned kidney beans makes the stew ultrafast and convenient.