• It’s extremely unfortunate that pesto made with a mortar and pestle tastes better than pesto made in a food processor or blender. Appliances are great for preparing large batches and are easy to throw in a dishwasher. But where the pesto from a blender is a delicious dressing or sauce, the herbaceous purée that’s been ground in a mortar is, as this chef describes it, a delightful piccolo crema.

  • It’s difficult to be precise about weights because home scales are not calibrated for basil leaves and garlic cloves. I enjoy pesto where the basil is dominant and cheese provides creaminess, so I emphasize those. Below are my current rough amounts for pesto for cooked pasta (uncooked weight of a pound):
    • 2-3 large cloves of garlic
    • 30g of pine nuts
    • 45g of shredded Parmesan
    • 6 cups, 50-60g, of lightly packed Italian basil leaves
    • 120g of extra virgin olive oil
    • Couple tablespoons of water for just a bit of runniness to the mixture
  • Don’t bother with preprocessing the raw ingredients in the hopes of nuance or more flavor. I played with a couple of ideas that were inspired from experience with other dishes. Grinding may be the only fussy step that gives all the flavor. I tried:
    • Blanching large basil leaves to tame some of their minty flavor profile. I imagined I could substitute blanced basil for young and tender basil leaves used in classical Genoan pesto, but it watered down the basil taste of the pesto
    • Toasting pine nuts to boost nuttiness. This was nice but not necessary
    • Gently infusing the olive oil with the garlic. This may be worth the trouble for people who enjoy a strong taste of garlic in pesto. If you consider experimenting with this step, be sure to cool down the oil to room temperature before using it to make pesto. Hotter oil will cook all other ingredients in the processing step

  • Some recipes will advocate using coarse salt to ground the garlic, but it seems superfluous. Consider not adding any salt until just about to store the pesto. The Parmesan will add some saltiness to the product.

  • Add pesto either cold or room temp to freshly cooked pasta or pizza. Do not heat the pesto because the oil will fry the other ingredients and the mixture will seperate. If it’s difficult to mix cold pesto into pasta, add a couple tablespoons of warm pasta water to loosen up the mix

  • Pesto pasta is best as a vegetarian dish. Peas and broad beans are great with pesto and add different pops of green color! In the past, I have added chicken or turkey to boost the protein content but the flavors never really melded. In fact, the discord was more pronounced as the dish lingered in the fridge. Treat leftover pesto pasta as a summer salad to be served at room temperature

Recipe

Recipe below for 16oz of pasta. It should be enough sauce for at least one 11-inch pizza

Ingredients

  • 2-3 large cloves of peeled and chopped garlic
  • 30g of pine nuts
  • 45g of shredded Parmesan
  • 6 cups, 50-60g, of lightly packed Italian basil leaves
  • 120g of extra virgin olive oil
  • Couple tablespoons of water

Pasta with pesto and peas

  • 1 bag (16oz) of pasta
  • 1 bag (12-14oz) of frozen green peas
  • Parmesan cheese
  • Salt

Steps

  • In a mortar, add garlic, nuts and cheese. Grind these to a coarse paste
  • Grind basil leaves in batches for ease of management
  • Add water as needed to keep the mixture just slightly runny
  • When done grinding the pesto, add a couple teaspoonfuls of olive oil to the mortar for ease of transferring it to a storage container
  • Add the rest of the oil to the pesto in the container and give it a good stir

Pasta

  • Cook the pasta to desired doneness. Towards the last 30 second or minute of cooking, add frozen peas to the pot to quickly thaw
  • Reserve a couple tablespoons of pasta water and drain the rest from the peas and pasta
  • Mix pesto in peas and pasta. Loosen the mix with the pasta water. Add more cheese if desired. Salt dish to taste