Pesto is one of the many delights of Italian cooking and also a way to remind you of summer. It is the fact that the Italians have this fantastic herb sauce which is combined with pine nuts. It makes for a stunning, slightly spicy, aromatic flavour which is based solely around basil and relies on olive oil to bring out the intensity of this flavour rarely seen elsewhere.
Pesto is a fine sauce for pasta – lets face it that was probably its original pairing but it is also used to flavour sandwiches, meats (especially grilled ones). We add it as a garnish to tomato soup, to risotto, to all sorts of vegetables. The pesto is also a versatile beast. Instead of basil, I replace it with rocket especially the wild rocket, wild garlic leaves, chives, very finely chopped up radicchio and so on. The wild garlic leaves actually grow in the garden as a weed but I’ve never got rid of them because its such a wonderful foraged food.
The classic and traditional pesto is this one:
It takes about 15 minutes to make and for 150g. This amount given is suitable for between 200g and 250g of freshly cooked pasta when used as the sauce. I recommend using a blender to whizz any of the ingredients together otherwise its a traditional pestle and mortar for generally amounts up to 50g of pine nuts.
Equipment:
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Ingredients:
- a large handful of fresh basil leaves and I still use the finely chopped stems if needs be.
- 150g pine nuts
- 1 or 2 garlic cloves
- 2 tsp salt
- 150g freshly grated Parmesan
- 120ml olive oil, plus extra if needed
- Salt
Preparation:
- Heat the oven to 200ºC. Toast the pine nuts until they are slightly browned and golden. Some prefer not to toast but it does add some additional flavour to the pesto.
- Pound the garlic cloves and pine nuts in a pestle and mortar. Use some of the salt to form a base for grinding against. Try to get a mash going. If you don’t have a P & M, use a blender as that works just as well but make sure you have added enough olive oil in the first instance so that any further ingredients go through the blender or the mill and get mixed up in the olive oil.
- Add the olive oil and keep mixing.
- Add the basil leaves and just keep on pounding away.
- Add the Parmesan – you’ve guessed it – keep pounding away.
- Pour the mixture in a lidded jar and keep in the fridge. Taste it just to see where you are with its flavour.
If you replace the pine nuts with the same amount of walnuts, you are making a walnut pesto which is equally yum!
If you want to know more about some of these ingredients, see our items on growing garlic and growing basil.
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