Nuts

Paste

Tiger-nut paste is the wet ground mash of soaked chufa tubers at the heart of Spanish horchata de chufa—before anyone strains it into a glass. The path is soak dried tubers until soft, grind with water, then extract the milky liquid and sweeten; the paste is that in-between stage, not a jar of almond marzipan sitting on a pastry bench. Valencian horchata shops and home cooks know this mash by smell: fresh paste is sweet and earthy; over-fermented paste turns sour and should be discarded. Strain thoroughly for a fine drink, and do not be afraid to press the solids twice for yield. Leftover fibre can flavour bakes or be composted. A good batch uses clean, hard dried chufa free of mould. A bad batch starts from dusty old tubers and tastes flat before it even ferments. This is sedge-tuber cookery; keep it labelled so nobody treats it as tree-nut praline.