Basic Pesto

24 July

The other day I was just checking out some pasta recipes on the net. Mainly looking for some recipes which do not talk about the standard red, white or pink sauces. So it happens the most popular sauce for pasta after the common ones is pesto.

Pesto is an iconic basil based sauce, that is enjoyed with pasta or bruschetta. It's typically a bright green sauce that originated in Genoa, the capital city of Liguria, Italy. The word "pesto" is the past tense of the Genoese verb 'pestare', which literally means 'to crush'. It might be due to the fact that we just incorporate all the ingredients and crush it all in to a nice fine paste using either a mortar pestle or a grinder.

I don't know why but I never had tasted pesto until last to last year. That time I had got some fresh basil and prepared a pesto sauce just out of whims and really liked it. 

I have already written about how to keep your basil fresh in my preservation techniques section. With the mentioned method I could keep the basil peppy for 6-7 days. It didn't loose any of its lovely color or flavor. 

Pesto is a very forgiving. In the end its a flavored nut butter you are making so you need not have any apprehensions as to the ingredients. You can add spinach or kale with the basil. If you do not have olive oil, use refined oil. If you do not have any pinenuts, make do with almonds. Vary the amount of basil and nuts for a more leafy or a more nutty butter paste. I would rather say make it a couple of times to know which pesto suits your palate best. The recipe I have mentioned below went very well with pasta. Also note the light chunkiness in the texture. I like it that way. Also it is recommend that you always spin up a fresh batch of pesto when you are about to use it.

Preparation Time : 15 minutes
Serving : 1 serving

Ingredients :

• Basil (de-stemmed) - 1 cup
• Pine nuts or Almonds (blanched and slivered)- 1/4 cup 
• Garlic - 3 big cloves
• Olive Oil - 1/2 cup
• Cheese (freshly grated) - 2 tbsp
• Lemon - 1/2 lemon

Method:

1. Remove the basil leaves from the stem. You can keep those stems on which are tender. Wash and clean them. Fresh basil would work best. (Refer to my basil preservation post to know how you can keep your basil fresh for long)

Note: I made this paste on day 2 of getting the leaves. Still you can see the beautiful color.

2. Combine the basil, blanched and slivered nuts, garlic into a mixer grinder and pulse it a couple of times till you can see they are a little chunky. 

3. Add the lemon juice and grated cheese and give it one more pulse. 

Tip: The lemon juice will help in giving the paste a nice green color.

4. Then slowly pour in the olive oil and it it blend well to get a paste like consistency.

Tips: I like the paste a little coarse. That way you can get a nice bite of the nuts in the dishes you use the sauce.

Note: If you do not have olive oil, you can replace it with normal refined oil. It might be a little less on flavor but it will still make a good paste.

Note 2: Please note that we are not adding any salt in this paste. You need to adjust salt in the dish itself in which you will be using this sauce.


Do try this out and tag me (@curriesnstories07) on Instagram on your photos whenever you try the recipe and I will give a shout out to you.