Monday, November 28, 2011

I could not be truly happy without pesto in my life

Picture care of Walter Köppe

We all go through fads, phases and fancies but some things we simply can never truly get enough of. Traditional basil pesto is one of those things for me. Even if I don't want to eat pasta pesto every night, having a jar of pesto in the fridge to add to a salad dressing, onto a sandwich, into a sauce, stew or soup will never get old for me. It is the one condiment which improves pretty much any dish it is added to. It compliments so many flavours and I have yet to meet the person who can honestly say that they do not like pesto (given that it is the real deal and not some crappy knock off, of course).

We are blessed these days to be able to find quite a few fabulous stores bought pestos, my personal favorite being Pesto Princess. But if you have not made the real thing yourself before, or perhaps just haven't found a great recipe. Give this one a try. I think it's pretty good.

Basil Pesto

Makes about 250ml

40g of pine nuts or macadamia nuts

1 large clove of garlic

125ml of good olive oil

40g of parmesan cheese (or similar – pecorino, grana padana)

1 Tbsp of lemon juice (more if desired)

2 tsp of lemon zest, finely grated

100g of fresh sweet basil

Salt to taste

Blend the nuts, garlic, olive oil and cheese together to form a paste. Add the basil and blend until just fine, but don’t over blend. Add salt to taste.


Other recipes on this blog with pesto

Pesto lasagna

Pesto and tomato tart

Pesto and cashew burger patties

Baked potato with chicken and pesto topping


No comments:

Post a Comment