ITALIAN BASIL PESTO
I’m so proud of myself! I learnt a few lessons too. I grew and harvested lovely, healthy, huge green armfuls of divine smelling basil. Trevor helped me clean this beautiful batch and we discarded the woody stems and the caterpillar-nibbled leaves but kept the soft stems. I set aside some fresh leaves for home use and turned the rest into the most delicious basil sauce. Oh and we returned Mr and Mrs Caterpillar and a baby to the garden. Well first him, then her, but I made sure we found him and reunited them.
- 430 g fresh basil leaves, about 6 cups, shredded*
- 6 tablespoons sunflower seeds or pine nuts
- 6 tablespoons pecan nuts
- 3 – 3½ cups extra virgin olive oil
- 150 g grated nettle cheddar cheese** SEE NOTE
- 5 garlic cloves finely minced, hearts removed
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
* GranMa always said shred herbs or lettuce rather than slicing and dicing and so I obey!
**this should be 300 g parmesan but I used what I had and it tasted amazing
Lessons learnt:
Don’t assume your blender can handle that much greenery and put it all in at once, especially if whole. Pesto means ‘crushed’ so it should be textured like from a pestle and mortar. For a large batch like this make absolutely sure to shred your leaves as much as you can. Plus the more you whirr the more you lose that beautiful bright green colour that looks so appetising.
Start with 2 cups of oil, salt, seeds and nuts, and the garlic and give it a quick pulse. Add generous handfuls of basil and blend, keep using the pulse setting to get a choppy effect and a gentle mix. Now alternate more oil, basil, and also cheese until you have a lovely green textured sauce that is well mixed but not smooth. You may not have need for all the oil. Even paste-y as mine was it still tastes heavenly so don’t stress if you are forced to keep blending.
Decant into containers, large ones for you and small ones for gifting.
I had to leave my lids off for a few minutes as my overworking of the mix meant it had a warmth once spooned out.
Tip:
You will have pesto clinging to the bottom and sides of your blender, spatula etc. Don’t wash it out as you can make some pasta, drain, spool the blender out with some pasta water and have pesto pasta or spool out with milk and add to another dish.
Recipe and photos: Leora Nair
