Tip of The Week
Starting today I will be posting little recipes or cooking tips once a week, so if there's a recipe your not good at and you want to improve ask your question.
This week I was asked for some tips on home-made pesto. Leading a busy live I don't always get time to make pesto from scratch but my indoor basil plants were getting too big and you just know that home made is going to taste better than shop bought.
Homemade Basil Pesto
100g (4oz) Large unbruised Basil Leaves
50g (2oz) lightly toasted pine nuts
75g (3oz) Grated fresh parmesan cheese
1 clove garlic roughly chopped
200ml extra virgin olive oil
1Tbsp chopped finely fresh parsley (optional)
In a large mortar and pestle
Grind up the pine nuts and the garlic until you have smooth paste.
Then slowly add a few basil leaves at a time and pound them into a silky smooth mixture.
At this point we are going to transfer the mixture to my food processor to finish the pesto off.
Of course we could have done the whole process in the food processor but we would never get as smooth that way. Using this old fashioned method it also bring out a richer greener colour.
Now that the basil paste is in your processor slowly add the parmesan cheese and the parsley on a high speed. Drizzle the olive oil on a lower speed, a little at a time. When you have finished adding all of the oil your pesto should be quite thick.Season lightly with salt and pepper.
Spoon the pesto into a re-sealable glass jar and refridgerate.
Some times I thin the pesto down further with more olive oil, then I can pour into a salad oil bottle.
Shake it before dressing the salad.
Ps. The purpose of the parsley is to increase the rich green colour, but if you use a Mortar and Pestle you probably wont need the.
Yoink! Thank you!!!!!!!!!!