In this part of Kansas pesto is one of those unheard of items. I was on an assignment in Phoenix and went to visit a friend who now lives in Flagstaff. She introduced me to pesto. It was love at first bite.
The best thing about pesto, it's easy to make. Right now I have a lot of basil in my garden. Pesto will stay in the freezer.
Today, let's learn how to make pesto.
This is one of the best investments I've made for the kitchen. It's the
Ninja Master Prep Professional Blender, Chopper and Ice Crusher. I picked mine up at Costco and I've seen them at Sam's Club, too. These little beauties make short work of so many time consuming tasks.
This is my go to equipment when I make pesto.
To make about a cup of pesto you'll need:
2 cups of fresh basil
1/4 cup pine nuts
3 cloves garlic (or 1 tablespoon of minced garlic)
1/4 Extra virgin olive oil
1/4 shredded Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon lemon juice
pinch of salt to taste
The main ingredient is basil. Use only the leaves. Make sure the leaves are green and healthy. Discard any leaves with blemishes. A rough measurement is fine. Just pack a measuring cup full of basil leaves until you have the desired amount.
The next step is pretty obvious, but just incase anyone is in question, wash the basil leaves. Wash them under running water. Remove all the stems from the leaves.
Next I drain the washed basil leaves on a towel or paper towels. After they've drained I get a fresh towel, put the basil in it, and twirl the towel around removing more of the water.
You want your basil to be dry before proceeding to the next step.
The next step involves chopping up the pine nuts. A note here: I do experiment with using other nuts in pesto. Pine nuts are by far provide the best flavor. No doubt about it. They are expensive. Considering you only need a quarter of a cup, it's not cost prohibitive. However, there appears to be a problem with some of the
pine nuts lately. Most of the metallic tasting pine nuts are those imported from China. No huge there that if something is tainted it's likely to be an import from China. Unfortunately, from my reading the metallic taste does not show up until the next day. So if you taste a pine nut today, discover it tastes fine, use the pine nuts in your pesto, eat the pesto tonight, you won't know for sure if they'll leave a bitter aftertaste until the following day. And that horrible taste tends to last a couple of weeks.
Locally I can only find pine nuts that originate from China. Which is why I've been experimenting with other nuts in my pesto sauce.
I've used almonds. While it doesn't give the original pesto flavor that I dearly love, it is a very nice runner up. Others have used walnuts (I hate walnuts so I won't use walnuts myself) or hazelnuts. Next on my list of substitues are sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. If you have a reliable source for pine nuts, use pine nuts. If you can only get pine nuts that are imported from China, you might want to try one of the substitue nuts/seeds.
I add the nuts/seeds that I'm using into my Ninja. You can use any type of blender that you own to make pesto. I chop them up. Then I add the extra virgin olive oil. Do not use any other type of olive oil. It will compromise the flavor. And now is when you want to add the cloves of garlic or the minced garlic. Pulse the blender a few short bursts or longer.
Start adding your fresh basil. Add in small batches of basil. Blend. Add more. Continue until all the basil has been added into the blender. You'll need to scrap down the sides during this step.
After all the basil has been added and blended into the mixture, add the parmesan cheese with a pinch of salt to taste. If you're not going to use all the pesto immediately, add the lemon juice. It keeps the pesto from turning a yucky brown when it's exposed to air.
And here is the finished product. Flavorful, aromatic pesto.
Pesto will keep in the freezer for about six months. Some sites will tell you to omit the cheese if you're going to freeze your pesto and add it after thawing. I've frozen pesto with the cheese included and I haven't had any problems.
If you do freeze the pesto, you will probably need to add more garlic to it after it's thawed. Garlic tends to lose some flavor from the freezing process. Just chop/dice a clove of garlic or add some minced garlic after the pesto has thawed.
Pesto is typically used with chicken or fish. There is no reason to limit pesto to these foods.
Coming soon I'll show you how to use pesto in a pizza. In the meantime, if you want a delightful snack get a loaf of Italian bread and slather some pesto on the bread. Let me know if you stop at just one slice. If you can you have more will power than me.
