raw cashews soaked soft and blended with water into a smooth, neutral, luxuriously rich cream that pours, whips, and cooks like dairy, the cornerstone of the modern plant-based kitchen
Origin: United States
From the journey of Cashew.
At the turn of the present century, on the West Coast of the United States and in the rising plant-based movement, cooks rediscovered the cashew as the perfect dairy substitute, and cashew cream became the single most useful technique in the vegan kitchen. The secret lies in the nut itself: alone among the common nuts, the cashew is mild, faintly sweet, and very high in fat but low in strong flavour, so that, soaked until soft and blended with water, it yields a cream that is smooth, neutral, and richly unctuous, with none of the assertive taste that defeats almond or walnut. Thinned, it is a pouring cream for soups and curries; thick, it is a soured cream or a base for cheese; sweetened and whipped, it is a dessert cream; cultured, it becomes the foundation of vegan cheeses. From a handful of cashews and a blender comes a single ingredient that stands in for dairy across the whole of cooking, and it is the reason the ancient Brazilian nut found a wholly new life in the twenty-first-century Western kitchen.
Cashew cream does not split when heated, so it is excellent stirred into hot soups, curries, and pasta sauces at the end of cooking. Use it anywhere dairy cream goes: in place of soured cream, in a vegan Alfredo or tikka masala, whipped for desserts, or as the base for the cultured cashew cheese in the companion recipe. Always use raw, unsalted, unroasted cashews.
Mapping Culinary History
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