Basil Pesto

In my last post I talked about doing more recipes for pasta dishes, as they are cheap and easy to make. So, I thought I’d begin with a recipe for basil pesto, something which is really easy to make and which goes quite a long way. Indeed, one need only add a teaspoon of this sauce to a bowl of pasta to make a quick, easy and fairly wholesome meal. When I was young I went through a phase of eating this simple, yet tasty, dish pretty much every day of the week, sometimes twice a day. It really is that nice, and if you’ve never tried it… do.

Some will try to tell you that the best way to make pesto is to use a mortar and pestle, however, as Rick Stein once commented, I challenge anyone to tell the difference between a torn leaf and a bashed leaf. As such, the easiest way to make this is to bung it all in a blender, stirring in the oil at the end until the required consistency has been found. It really is as simple as that, which is why I have felt little need to include a method in this recipe. In fact, the only mildly complicated thing one must do is toast the pine nuts. To do this simply place the pine nuts in a dry pan tossing the occasionally until browned, do not allow them to burn.

Basil Pesto {recipe}

Serves 10-15

Ingredients:

• 3 handfuls of fresh basil, remove large stalks
• ½ clove of garlic
• 1 handful of toasted pine nuts
• 1 handful of finely grated parmesan cheese
• Squeeze of lemon juice
• Plenty of oil, add until fluid but not runny
• Seasoning

A pot of good pesto in a supermarket generally costs around £2, we shall ignore the pants Sainsbury’s own brand which skimps on the more expensive pine nuts. This recipe comes in at between £2 and £2.50 for the entire pot, and it makes substantially more than the 190g pots one buys in the shops. This means that each serving of pesto will cost a maximum of 25p, which I think is a real bargain.