Pesto alla genovese

Ingredients

• Basil leaves60 g
• Pine nuts30 g
• Garlic1 clove
• Parmesan — finely grated50 g
• Pecorino — finely grated25 g
• Extra virgin olive oil100 ml
• Coarse salt1 pinch

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Wash the basil and dry it completely: any water stops the oil binding to the leaves. Chill the mortar and pestle in the fridge.

   5 min

2. 2

   Pound the garlic with the coarse salt to a paste. The salt works as an abrasive; without it the garlic just slides around.

   2 min

3. 3

   Add the pine nuts and work them to a cream, then add the basil a handful at a time. The movement is a pressing circle rather than a pounding: the leaves are crushed against the wall, not smashed.

   8 min

4. 4

   Work in both cheeses, then trickle the oil in while still grinding. The sauce should come together thick and even.

   5 min

About the dish

Pesto is not cooked, it is pounded. The word comes from pestare, to pound. Anything warm costs it colour: basil blackens against a steel blade and in the heat of a blender, and a bright green sauce turns swamp-coloured in a minute.

Genoa uses a small-leaved basil; the large southern variety tastes closer to mint and gives a different sauce. If large leaves are all you have, use only the young ones from the top.

Proper pesto does not pour. It is thick and grainy, and it is loosened to the right consistency with pasta water — the starch in it binds the oil to the cheese.

Worth knowing

• — With no mortar, chill the blender bowl in the freezer and work in two-second pulses. The result is worse but not a disaster.
• — Never warm pesto pasta in a pan. The sauce is tossed with hot pasta in a bowl, and that heat is enough.
• — Under a film of oil in a jar it keeps a week in the fridge. Freeze it without the cheese and add that when you serve.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

340 kcal

Protein

8 g

Fat

34 g

Carbs

3 g

More from Italy

• Spaghetti carbonara — Pasta from four ingredients: guanciale, eggs, pecorino and pepper. There is no cream in it and never was.
• Risotto alla milanese — A saffron risotto built on stock and near-constant stirring, which is what pulls the starch out of the rice and makes it creamy.