Pesto Recipe

Pesto

One of my few memories of eating pesto is in a sandwich that I used to buy. Pesto, together with prosciutto, mozzarella cheese and sunflower seed bread was absolutely divine. I didn’t have prosciutto at home so it’s a plain mozzarella pesto sandwich in the photo above. Delicious but it needed the prosciutto. And sandwich with oil running down the sides is not ideal for eating.

And here’s pesto with pasta, a really quick and easy meal. Bit of interesting and totally useless information: if you replace ‘e’ and ‘o’ in pesto, you get pasta. And Wikipedia tells me pesto is Italian so it seems Italians were not so creative with using alphabets to create names. What they lacked in creativity they made up for it with good food.

Pesto

Source: Food Network

Ingredients

2 cups packed fresh basil leaves

2 cloves garlic

¼ cup pine nuts

2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

½ cup freshly grated Pecorino or Parmesan cheese

Directions

1.      Combine the basil, garlic, and pine nuts in a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add 1/2 cup of the oil and process until fully incorporated and smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

2.      If using immediately, add all the remaining oil and pulse until smooth. Transfer the pesto to a large serving bowl and mix in the cheese.

3.      If freezing, transfer to an air-tight container and drizzle remaining oil over the top. Freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw and stir in cheese.

Pesto

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