Sunday, June 29, 2008
Pesto time!
Pesto....that simple paste of fresh basil, garlic, parmesan cheese and olive oil. It transforms pasta, potatoes, cauliflower tomatoes and numerous other things into something de-lish. Heck, I'll bet you could take a piece of wood, put pesto on it and it would be tasty. You'd even get a significant amount of insoluble fiber. Splinters too...ANYWAY, pesto is good and if you can take a little tedious prep, incredibly easy to make.
Step 1: Grow some basil. Not as hard as you'd really think. Go to your local home improvement store, buy a pot, dirt (unless you're one of those lucky people who have dirt in your yard) and a basil plant. Heck, buy two. If you're buying dirt, what else will you do with the rest of it? Exactly. I wish I'd taken a picture of the large bushy basil before I denuded it. It was very hearty and beautiful. And if basil can get "hearty and beautiful" under my care, you can surely do better. I'm not much of a plant person. I'm not much for tending in general. If you can't fend for yourself, you won't do well around me, but basil is quite forgiving and easy. Really.
Step 2: Gather the non-basil ingredients. I used olive oil out of the pourer we have hanging around, garlic, parmesan, parsley, yogurt, pine nuts. I know parsley and yogurt aren't typical ingredients, but hear me out. Basil, like apples, bananas and iron, oxidizes when exposed to oxygen and turns dark brownish black. I could load up the pesto with olive oil, but I prefer to add in some extra chlorophyll by adding parsley and I'll section out some of the pesto to add in to the yogurt. This will add creaminess, protein and tang. It's an experiment, I admit, but there's plenty more time this summer to grow basil. Apologies for the picture. The other one was worse....promise.
Step 3: Begin prep--green things. Pesto needs a lot of prep. After cutting, you should probably wash the basil. It grows up out of the dirt, but you never know what kind of life form it could be supporting. After a bath, the basil relaxes like so....
Step 3A: Still prepping the green things. After a nice rinse, you pluck the leaves off the stem. some herbs have tender, forgiving stems (like our friend parsley), but basil does not. The basil stems are so tough, I didn't even put them down the garbage disposal. They went outside to become compost. Not "formal" compost, I'm not that organized. More a casual "I threw them outside and they'll turn into organic matter where they land" kind of compost. And after you pick off the basil, give it a good spin. It doesn't have to be dry dry, but shouldn't be soaking wet.
Step 3B: Our friend, parsley. There's not a lot to say about parsley in the pesto-making process. It's a supporting character. I hope it will stabilize the color and not add much flavor. This particular parsley was incredibly dirty, but there are only so many exciting ways of capturing greens as they wash. However, it's our friend, so it gets a photo op.
Step 4: Start on everything else. First off is the parmesan cheese. I could use really incredible Parmesano Reggiano for this, but I think it gets lost here. You neeed parm, but whatever your local store sells will be OK. You don't have to be fussy with it. Just cut it into chunks your food processor or blender can handle.
Step 5: Garlic. Mr. EY actually grew the garlic you see here. I admit, I was not sure it would work or make decent garlic, but it did.
Step 6: Shredding the parm. There's no need to clean out the bowl of the processor, just dump in the chunks
and hit "ON". Like this
Step 7: Go nuts. Pine nuts, specifically. Pine nuts come from a specific kind of pine tree and are mighty tasty. They're even tastier toasted. Some advocate toasting them in a pan on the stove, but on a quarter sheet pan under the broiler (a long way from the broiler) is easier for me.
Step 8: Invite the herbs to the party. Pesto takes a lot of basil. Really. A lot. See? If you can't see the line in the bowl, that's 16 cups. I packed it down a bit, but didn't get carried away, so it's not precisely 16 cups, but it's fairly close. Pesto is best made my feel, smell and taste. I could give you amounts on some ingredients, but the only reason I can measure this one is that I knew I needed my biggest bowl. Which happens to have measurements inside. Otherwise, I'd just say I use a LOT of basil.
Step 9: Everybody in the pool. Yes, now that you've picked, washed, spun, toasted and processed a little bit, it's time to process a lot. Put as much of everything as you can into your handy food processor, put the lid on and go.
When you're done, it will look all green and delicious
No, that's not all. All of what I had wouldn't fit in the processor at one time. So here's Round 2
And then the batches mix together
You see how the bottom part isn't so green? That's because that round had more parm. I'll mix it together and it will be fine. Really.
I know there are no pictures of the olive oil. It's not that I don't think olive oil is important. Far from it. About the only things I don't put olive oil in are coffee, cookies and cheesecake. However, I'm not a steady picture taker (Not that you'd have noticed. Oh, you didn't? Aren't you sweet?). And I'm a klutz. Me trying to take a picture while I slowly drizzle olive oil into the running food processor is asking for disaster. When you make pesto, put "enough" in. How much is "enough"? You'll know. Trust yourself. I prefer to have slightly dry pesto because you can always add in liquid. If you make an oily delicious mess, you're kinda stuck with it. You can always do more basil, pine nuts, garlic and parm, but it's safer to go easy on the oil.
Here is where I've taken out some of the pesto to add in yogurt. If I ate fish, this would be perfect to serve over a nice piece of, well, whatever fish goes with pesto. What I think will probably happen to this pesto and yogurt is that it will adorn sauteed zucchini or spiral pasta. If someone would fix chicken, this would be good with it.
Step 10: We're DONE! Yes, now the pesto is ready for action. What kind of action? Hot pasta action is a classic. Hot baby potatoes are another. I'll be taking some of the non-yogurted pesto on some baby potatoes to a cookout on Friday. Chicken, if you're brave enough to touch it. Good sliced tomatoes would love a spoon of pesto. Grilled bread schmeared with pesto will send most people to swooning. Just about anything savory (e.g. not sweet) would be 1000% better with some pesto.
So get out there and make some pesto!
Step 1: Grow some basil. Not as hard as you'd really think. Go to your local home improvement store, buy a pot, dirt (unless you're one of those lucky people who have dirt in your yard) and a basil plant. Heck, buy two. If you're buying dirt, what else will you do with the rest of it? Exactly. I wish I'd taken a picture of the large bushy basil before I denuded it. It was very hearty and beautiful. And if basil can get "hearty and beautiful" under my care, you can surely do better. I'm not much of a plant person. I'm not much for tending in general. If you can't fend for yourself, you won't do well around me, but basil is quite forgiving and easy. Really.
Step 2: Gather the non-basil ingredients. I used olive oil out of the pourer we have hanging around, garlic, parmesan, parsley, yogurt, pine nuts. I know parsley and yogurt aren't typical ingredients, but hear me out. Basil, like apples, bananas and iron, oxidizes when exposed to oxygen and turns dark brownish black. I could load up the pesto with olive oil, but I prefer to add in some extra chlorophyll by adding parsley and I'll section out some of the pesto to add in to the yogurt. This will add creaminess, protein and tang. It's an experiment, I admit, but there's plenty more time this summer to grow basil. Apologies for the picture. The other one was worse....promise.
Step 3: Begin prep--green things. Pesto needs a lot of prep. After cutting, you should probably wash the basil. It grows up out of the dirt, but you never know what kind of life form it could be supporting. After a bath, the basil relaxes like so....
Step 3A: Still prepping the green things. After a nice rinse, you pluck the leaves off the stem. some herbs have tender, forgiving stems (like our friend parsley), but basil does not. The basil stems are so tough, I didn't even put them down the garbage disposal. They went outside to become compost. Not "formal" compost, I'm not that organized. More a casual "I threw them outside and they'll turn into organic matter where they land" kind of compost. And after you pick off the basil, give it a good spin. It doesn't have to be dry dry, but shouldn't be soaking wet.
Step 3B: Our friend, parsley. There's not a lot to say about parsley in the pesto-making process. It's a supporting character. I hope it will stabilize the color and not add much flavor. This particular parsley was incredibly dirty, but there are only so many exciting ways of capturing greens as they wash. However, it's our friend, so it gets a photo op.
Step 4: Start on everything else. First off is the parmesan cheese. I could use really incredible Parmesano Reggiano for this, but I think it gets lost here. You neeed parm, but whatever your local store sells will be OK. You don't have to be fussy with it. Just cut it into chunks your food processor or blender can handle.
Step 5: Garlic. Mr. EY actually grew the garlic you see here. I admit, I was not sure it would work or make decent garlic, but it did.
Step 6: Shredding the parm. There's no need to clean out the bowl of the processor, just dump in the chunks
and hit "ON". Like this
Step 7: Go nuts. Pine nuts, specifically. Pine nuts come from a specific kind of pine tree and are mighty tasty. They're even tastier toasted. Some advocate toasting them in a pan on the stove, but on a quarter sheet pan under the broiler (a long way from the broiler) is easier for me.
Step 8: Invite the herbs to the party. Pesto takes a lot of basil. Really. A lot. See? If you can't see the line in the bowl, that's 16 cups. I packed it down a bit, but didn't get carried away, so it's not precisely 16 cups, but it's fairly close. Pesto is best made my feel, smell and taste. I could give you amounts on some ingredients, but the only reason I can measure this one is that I knew I needed my biggest bowl. Which happens to have measurements inside. Otherwise, I'd just say I use a LOT of basil.
Step 9: Everybody in the pool. Yes, now that you've picked, washed, spun, toasted and processed a little bit, it's time to process a lot. Put as much of everything as you can into your handy food processor, put the lid on and go.
When you're done, it will look all green and delicious
No, that's not all. All of what I had wouldn't fit in the processor at one time. So here's Round 2
And then the batches mix together
You see how the bottom part isn't so green? That's because that round had more parm. I'll mix it together and it will be fine. Really.
I know there are no pictures of the olive oil. It's not that I don't think olive oil is important. Far from it. About the only things I don't put olive oil in are coffee, cookies and cheesecake. However, I'm not a steady picture taker (Not that you'd have noticed. Oh, you didn't? Aren't you sweet?). And I'm a klutz. Me trying to take a picture while I slowly drizzle olive oil into the running food processor is asking for disaster. When you make pesto, put "enough" in. How much is "enough"? You'll know. Trust yourself. I prefer to have slightly dry pesto because you can always add in liquid. If you make an oily delicious mess, you're kinda stuck with it. You can always do more basil, pine nuts, garlic and parm, but it's safer to go easy on the oil.
Here is where I've taken out some of the pesto to add in yogurt. If I ate fish, this would be perfect to serve over a nice piece of, well, whatever fish goes with pesto. What I think will probably happen to this pesto and yogurt is that it will adorn sauteed zucchini or spiral pasta. If someone would fix chicken, this would be good with it.
Step 10: We're DONE! Yes, now the pesto is ready for action. What kind of action? Hot pasta action is a classic. Hot baby potatoes are another. I'll be taking some of the non-yogurted pesto on some baby potatoes to a cookout on Friday. Chicken, if you're brave enough to touch it. Good sliced tomatoes would love a spoon of pesto. Grilled bread schmeared with pesto will send most people to swooning. Just about anything savory (e.g. not sweet) would be 1000% better with some pesto.
So get out there and make some pesto!
Labels: food porn
