Playing Around with Pesto

Let’s talk about pesto. Sure yeah, it’s delicious and is typically made with basil, olive oil, fresh parmesan and pine nuts. But those ingredients are expensive and can be difficult to find out of season.

Did you know that the word “pesto” comes from the Italian pestare meaning to crush or to blend? The basil pesto that we’ve all come to know and love is originally from Liguria, a city in the Northwest of Italy, close to the French boarder. Basil plants grow in abundance around Liguria because the ideal growing conditions and mineral rich soil. It was, and still is, traditionally made with a mortar and pestle and served fresh.

But pesto can be made from any number of green leafy herbs and you can really play around with the ingredients.

For example, the very best pesto I ever made was with arugula and sorrel. Sorrel is a green leafy plant that grows locally here. It has a lovely lemony flavour that was just magic when mixed with arugula.

My general rule of thumb with pesto is as follows:

• Fill the basket of your salad spinner with aromatic green leaves:
• Sorrel, arugula, parsley, cilantro, basil, mint, sage, mustard greens, dandelion, beet greens (but I would mix these with something pungent like arugula, sorrel or basil). Same goes for spinach, chard or kale.
• NB: If you want to make chard or kale based pesto, good on yah! But make sure you give a quick blanch or steam to them first because they’re a bit on the tough side and need some convincing to get the leaves to play nice with your other ingredients!

• Blend in a food processor ¼ nuts:
• Almonds, cashews, pine nuts, pecans, pistachios, sunflower seeds, peanuts, walnuts etc
• 2 cloves garlic
• Dash of olive oil to keep things all loosey goosey

I like to blend the nuts and garlic together first so that you can really see whether they’ve been evenly broken up before adding everything else.

• Add:
•  ¼ cup hard, sharp cheese, grated
• You can absolutely make a dairy free pesto with a tablespoon of tahini and some extra salt
• Add your greens a handful at a time and drizzle them with olive oil as you go. You want the consistency to be thick but cohesive and for the pesto to start falling away from the sides of the food processor without getting soupy.
• Season with salt and black pepper

Once you’ve gotten the general hang of the whole pesto universe you can start experimenting with other flavors by adding lemon juice, dried chili flakes, sesame seeds etc.

Lavender and I freeze our pesto in ice cube trays and then pop them out and into a freezer bag. Defrost one cube to make pesto mayo dipping sauce for veggies or 4 cubes and throw them into a pasta cream sauce for a super fast meal with friends! It's great having pesto on hand all year long. It's like having little cubes of summer ready to pop out whenever you need them and it’s a great way to preserve those incredible, delicate greens when they’re in season.

Bon appétit,
Basil