Pesto¶
317 words on Food
After asking my brother for the dead simple recipe around a dozen times, I eventually got round to making my own pesto. You know, just for decadence’s sake. And because it’s supposed to taste better. Just be sure to shoot me before I start making my own pasta.
The main problem when making pesto is that you need pine seeds to do so. In most supermarkets pine seeds are hideously expensive. Only after a lot of looking around I could find vaguely affordable ones. So our ingredients are:
- around 100g of pine seeds
- a large basil plant
- parmesan
- salt, pepper, nutmeg
- a clove of garlic or two
- olive oil
Making the pesto is rather straightforward. First you roast the pine seeds in a pan (easily burnt once things get going!) and let them get reasonably cool again afterwards.
Then you need a blender. One that’s suitable for chopping stuff. Luckily my Pürierstab has an addition that’s just right for the job. Chop half of the pineseeds finely in there, add half of the basil leaves, finely grated parmesan and garlic, add a good dash of olive oil as well as pepper, salt, and a bit of grated nutmeg to taste, rhetorically ask Will it blend?
and blend away until the result looks fine enough for your taste. Then repeat all those steps with the other half of the ingredients.
After all those steps you’ll have about a glass full of pesto. And after setting the value of your labour to zero, it’ll only be slightly more expensive than a reasonably tasting supermarket pesto. It’ll just taste very different. Mine was very rich and nutty in taste. Which would be brilliant on a cold winter day. Unfortunately I was looking more for a ‘refreshing’ pesto on that warm day. I guess I’ll try with less pine seeds and some new ideas the next time.
Looks good, doesn’t it?
