Passport & Plate - Pesto, A Family Recipie
Ingredients
The first step is to collect all of the ingredients and tools. The ingredients are half of the recipe, so pay close attention.
Ingredients.
Basil. It tastes the best when it is home grown. I recommend buying a basil plant from Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods for your kitchen or backyard. The smaller leaves are more flavorful and therefore preferable. Depending on the number of basil plants you own, it is always smart to pick up a large bushel of organic basil at the market in case your plant doesn’t produce enough leaves.
Parmesan Cheese. Pick up the real grated parmesan in the little plastic bin from Trader Joe’s or grab a wedge of parmesan and start grating. The parmesan should be grated small enough to resemble a powder.
Olive Oil. Take your pick here, but make sure it’s a good one. Trader Joe’s Spanish olive oil is quite good.
Pine Nuts. Preferably raw, can be found at Trader Joe’s.
Garlic. Organic is better.
Pasta. The classic is have linguini or trofie with pesto, but take your pick. Barilla and Garofalo are both really great brands. The Italian rule is about 100 grams of pasta per person.
Kosher Salt. Grab the cooking kosher salt, not the table kosher salt.
Sea Salt.
Preferences. Feel free to play with the ingredients, especially quantities. In Liguria it’s quite common to see basil pesto with green beans and/or potatoes.
Tools.
Food Processor.
A String Spoon.
Spaghetti Utensil/Fork.
Pot.
Glass Oven Safe Dish.
Strainer.
How to prepare this recipeBasil Pesto Recipe.
Pick, clean and de-stem basil leaves.
Stick half or the full bag of pine nuts in a glass dish and cook at 400 degrees check back every few minutes and stir. Pull the pine nuts out of the oven once they have a golden brown color.
Add clean and de-stemmed basil leaves, a clove of garlic, olive oil, parmesan, sea salt and roasted pine nuts into the food processor. Process and taste; add more of any ingredient and process until it tastes good. *If you are planning to freeze the pesto, know that it won’t freeze as well with the parmesan in it.
Add pesto into serving bowls with a little extra olive oil. Pesto should not be heated in a microwave or pot, the heat from the pasta will warm it up.
Pour the remaining pesto into a tupperware container, use a spatula to get every last drop, and seal pesto by adding olive oil at the top. Stick it in the fridge.
Boil water; once boiling, add one or more palmfuls of kosher salt. If you are making spaghetti, linguini or fettucine add a little olive oil to the water to prevent the pasta from sticking together.
Add pasta and cook for the minimum package recommendation.
Strain pasta and add to the serving bowls. Purists advocate for adding a bit of water to the pesto in the serving bowl; not my favorite, but Pappi loves it.
Mix the pasta into the pesto and serve with parmesan for those who would like to add more.
Mangia! or order pizza…
The story behind this recipe“Okay mom, so how much basil do I need?” Questions like this, regarding ingredient quantities, were always followed by a sideways glance of despair and, “Oh geez, Emili, you know I never know the answer to that question. I really should start writing this down, … it just needs to look right and taste good.”
The best family recipes are never entirely recorded, perhaps just a few scribbles in a notebook or on a recipe card. You learn these precious family delicacies by watching, feeling and listening. As was done with stories that were never taken to paper, each orator adds the color of their personal taste, experience and time. This alteration leaves the recipe uniquely tied to all of those who told it before. Family recipes are altered over time to adapt to new lands with different ingredients, new tools and your mother’s preference for less garlic.
This brings us to the pesto recipe, and my mother’s preference for less garlic.
