Sunday, February 22, 2009
Pesto Pesto Pesto - The Most Easy Going Recipe
Probably everyone knows the magically delicious, green sauce called pesto. It is widely available at supermarkets (at least in the US) and used to dress up a wide variety of pasta and vegetable dishes. A very common recipe consists of fresh basil leaves, garlic, olive oil, pine nuts, hard cheese, salt & pepper.
What is not commonly recognized is that a pesto recipe can be super versatile. This is actually not that so surprising. The name "pesto" comes from the latin word for "to pound" or "to crush". So, actually any sauce in that form can be considered pesto. This means you do not have to stick with one recipe and you can adjust the amounts of ingredients depending on your taste buds, your nutritional concerns and the food you will be mixing the sauce with. What an easy-going recipe! Recently I ran into a few recipes which included arugula, brocoli, tomato, and several without cheese.
Pesto is probably one of the easiest sauces to make. Since it is a sauce that is created by pounding, just dump the ingredients of your choice and the desired amount into your blender and ta-da!
Classic Pesto Recipe
Ingredients
2 cups fresh basil leaves (you can use more if you want a stronger taste, or if you will use the sauce with meat)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese (you can take this out, if you are a vegan or planning to freeze the sauce)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts
3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced (adjustable according to your preference)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste (again, adjustable according to your preference)
If you want to be a bit adventurous -
Add one cup of sun dried tomatoes and a little bit more olive oil.
I have this incredibly clear memory of my friend Robert making pesto one night, when we were over at his house. He toasted the pine nuts first, which we claimed was the great secret to his pesto. I'm not sure. It was definitely good, but we also drank about 3 bottles of cheap chianti ;-)
ReplyDeleteHAHA! Of course, chianti makes all the difference in the world.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think toasting nuts brings out all the flavours and oils. However, I am not so good at toasting nutes. Three out of five times, I ended up burning them. So, I just play safe :)