Pesto Party
This is an extraordinarily easy recipe, barely worthy of the name. Anyone with one arm and at least a third of a cerebral cortex can make pesto. And it is one of the most delicious and handy things to have around the kitchen.
Ingredients:
Two cups of basil leaves, well pressed down. If you keep some basil on your windowsill and you're not a completely deranged pizza and pasta addict, you'll probably find like me that it outgrows your ability to use it.
So what better way to keep the wild basil bush in line than with a regular haircut, and a pesto session?
A quarter cup of parmesan, grated. This is the only bit of hard work in this recipe - parmesan has the texture and density of petrified oak. But you'll have a quarter cup before you know it, and it's well worth it for that amazing flavour.
Half a cup of good olive oil.
Three tablespoons of pine nuts. You can use walnuts, but I always find them a bit bitter.
And finally, three cloves of garlic, topped and tailed and peeled.
Now for the complicated preparation bit. Sling everything in the food processor or blender, and blend it until smoke comes out of the back of the machine. That's a secret signal to tell you your pesto is ready.
By God, doesn't that look good?
Only thing left is to pour/pack it into an ice cube tray and freeze it for all your pesto needs.
And once you have it, this stuff is (green) gold. For starters - it's an instant meal (almost) by itself. Boil some pasta, melt a pesto cube over it in the pan, and bingo - lunch! With maybe a bit of the extra parmesan grated over it if you're splashing out. As an additive, pesto brings new levels of deliciousness to any red sauce (if I have any it always goes in my pasta and pizza sauces). You can melt it onto fish, meat or vegetables, spread a thin layer on toast, add it to sandwiches, or use it in most cases where you'd use fresh basil.
Great, now I'm starving.
Ingredients:
Two cups of basil leaves, well pressed down. If you keep some basil on your windowsill and you're not a completely deranged pizza and pasta addict, you'll probably find like me that it outgrows your ability to use it.
So what better way to keep the wild basil bush in line than with a regular haircut, and a pesto session?
A quarter cup of parmesan, grated. This is the only bit of hard work in this recipe - parmesan has the texture and density of petrified oak. But you'll have a quarter cup before you know it, and it's well worth it for that amazing flavour.
Half a cup of good olive oil.
Three tablespoons of pine nuts. You can use walnuts, but I always find them a bit bitter.
And finally, three cloves of garlic, topped and tailed and peeled.
Now for the complicated preparation bit. Sling everything in the food processor or blender, and blend it until smoke comes out of the back of the machine. That's a secret signal to tell you your pesto is ready.
By God, doesn't that look good?
Only thing left is to pour/pack it into an ice cube tray and freeze it for all your pesto needs.
And once you have it, this stuff is (green) gold. For starters - it's an instant meal (almost) by itself. Boil some pasta, melt a pesto cube over it in the pan, and bingo - lunch! With maybe a bit of the extra parmesan grated over it if you're splashing out. As an additive, pesto brings new levels of deliciousness to any red sauce (if I have any it always goes in my pasta and pizza sauces). You can melt it onto fish, meat or vegetables, spread a thin layer on toast, add it to sandwiches, or use it in most cases where you'd use fresh basil.
Great, now I'm starving.
Labels: basil, Food processor, Garlic, Olive oil, parmesan, Pasta, Pesto, Pine nut, Pizza
posted by Mark at
12:53
1 Comments:
Pecorino Romano is the cheese for pesto making, its way nicer than parmesan
07 May 2009 18:44
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