My mum’s excess food purchases seem to inspire a lot of my cooking nowadays. I’ve always said that from the amount she cooks she should have had 5 boys. She got stuck with one overfed lil’ lady who loves to cook too!
This week, she bought industrial-sized bags of walnuts and pine nuts. I went for the first thing that you would think of with pine nuts (apart from maybe Spanakopita) and surprise, surprise decided to try my hand at pestos! Pesto is quite simple – any basic pesto will be olive oil, pine nuts, garlic, basil and parm. Oh, the possibilities! It’s moments like this that I tend to get a little frenzied. ‘Subbing out the traditional olive oil for my nice walnut oil? Or maybe truffle oil! Truffle basil pesto, would that work?’ But no, no, alas I reined it in, as I think it is good to be quite familiar with the core recipe before going wild, you learn more.
From this foray, I learned to not over pulse your pesto, I wish I would have left it a little bit more bitty and coarse. Instead I was obsessed about tweaking flavors so much it got a bit smooth and paste-y. My pine nut to oil ratio was a bit off too and I needed to add more oil, most pesto recipes call for more oil than pine nuts so that definitely attributed to my thicker pesto. Secondly, I learned that pine nuts are so earthy I really think that pestos can benefit from a healthy whap of acid and a really nice sharp extra virgin olive oil. The red pesto was salvaged with the interesting addition of sriracha and the super-necessary red wine vinegar and the basil pesto turned into a lemon basil pesto which was the best decision ever.
Lastly I gained another example of ‘once you go fresh, you never go back’. These pestos, though I will continue to tweak and play in the future with consistency and flavour, were far and away more delicious than any store bought and it’s so easy you can just throw all the ingredients together and Bob’s your uncle! Pestos are a great time to play, go have fun.
Sun-dried Tomato Pesto
- About a dozen soaked sun-dried tomatoes
- 1 tsp red wine vinegar
- 2 tsp ketchup
- 2 tsp sriracha
- 2 tbsp parmesan
- ½ cup pine nuts
- Couple sprigs of fresh basil
- 2 garlic cloves
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
- Salt to taste
Toast pinenuts by sautéing in pan for a couple mins. Throw all ingredients in food processor and give it a couple pulses until it gets to the consistency you like, I suggest a chunkier, less smooth pesto.
Lemon-Basil Pesto
- Bunch of fresh basil
- 2 garlic cloves
- Half a lemon, squeezed all up in there
- 2 tbsp parmesan
- ½ cup pine nuts
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
- Salt to taste
Throw all ingredients in food processor and give it a couple pulses until it gets to the consistency you like, I suggest a chunkier, less smooth pesto.