30 min Taste of Summer: Fresh Pesto Genovese
Also: what I miss in Italy, gelsomino, and summer food/Italy books
Ciao friends!
We are in our last week here in Indiana, where I’ve made 2 big pasta dinners for our full family of 12. Next up: a pasta demo and tasting for 20 people at my mom’s retirement home! The elders, as we like to call them, are very excited about the class and have upped the game by turning it into a full luncheon with a crispy chicken cotoletta as a secondo, wine tasting, and strawberry tiramisu for dessert. Can’t wait to share pasta with them and the results with you!
This week, I’m proposing summer in a bowl in 30 minutes. Fresh pesto made any way you like, mixer, mezzaluna, or mortar and pestle, is going to bring you serious joy! Pesto Genovese, a pasta sauce mash up with basil, pine nuts, and parmigiano, is a staple in our house and my son’s favorite food. At our casa we typically make it fresh and quick with a mezzaluna (start at 2:44) or mixer. It’s so easy. This year, I ramped up my pesto-making by trying these traditional methods direct from the homeland of pesto, Liguria, which I’ll share with you:
- pesto with mortar and pestle,
- pesto al mixer with COLD extra virgin olive oil
Jump ahead to pesto 3-way and my easy weeknight pesto recipe below or hang with me for a nostalgic minute about what I miss right now in Italy (besides my dog, Coco, and espresso in a real espresso cup at the bar).
For a deep dive into the fascinating history of pesto Genovese and ingredients, the wonderful Enrica Monzeni, Ligurian born and bred food writer and cookbook author, fantasizes poetically about the possible origins of the pesto we know today:
Maybe one morning a home cook, after having crushed that fresh garlic clove in the mortar, looking around in the kitchen decided to put a handful of those shining basil leaves on the window sill, that grated Parmigiano left over from the evening before and those few pine-nuts laying in the jar. A pinch of rock salt and then she smashed, pounded, crushed rhythmically swinging her hips in the summer breeze. She stared proud at her thin paste in the mortar, she poured a thing string of gold extra- virgin olive oil, stirred gently and BLAM!, and the magic had happened.
Though my love and fascination for Liguria is boundless, let’s come back to Como for a moment to share a bit of summer here with you.
Step away from the lake, outside the 2-story grey stone medieval walls and towers circling the city center, past the grassy park and edicola newstand with fluttering copies of Corriere della Sera and La Provincia. The air of Lake Como changes composition from the usual 80% oxygen and 20% carbon dioxide into the sweetest perfume. Como’s many pergolas, balconies, trellises, and garden fences, normally coated in thick, twisty green ivy burst into walls of delicate white thin 5-petalled flowers. These tiny blooms, only as large as a 2-euro coin, scent the city to varying but ever-present degrees. Far from the flowers, there’s a vague overall sweetness to the air that you might just call “spring” but you’d be wrong, it’s gelsomino, or jasmine. Close to the flowers, the air is so honeyed, you feel like you could bite into it.
Summer reads: food and Italy-themed
This is what I packed for the airplane. True to form, all books about food and/or Italy. What are you reading? Have you read these already? Send me your recs in the comments below!
First in the lineup; I just finished devouring my first Ruth Reichl, ‘Save Me the Plums’. This funny and poignant memoir of the legendary Reichl’s experience as Gourmet magazine’s Editor In Chief brought me spinning into the world of food magazine publishing. I couldn’t put it down.
‘The Sicilian Inheritance’ by Jo Piazza: Already poised next to my suitcase for the return flight is this Sicilian mystery spanning 2 generations. You all know I ‘m channelling major Sicilian vibes this summer and will be making this Lemon Pistacchio Spaghetti at the elder’s Italian pasta tasting on Monday!
Pesto 3-Way!
Ready? Let’s transport to the rocky beaches, clear blue waters, and colorful fishing boats of Liguria with fresh, green, creamy summer in a bowl, pasta al pesto.
Note: We always have to leave out the garlic because my son says it’s too spicy, but this is not uncommon at all in Italy. On weekends in Liguria, we can always choose between pesto with/without garlic there as well.
pst! Scroll to the very bottom to download recipe pdf!
Pesto 1: Classic mortar and pestle
My first time. Wow. This intimate process awakens all the senses of smell, sight, sound, touch. The pestle releases the oils 1000x better than a slicing mezzaluna or mixer with new depth of scent being evoked in each addition of ingredients.
I used Laurel Evans’ Pesto recipe from Liguria: The Cookbook as part of the enjoyable Quanto Basta Cookbook Club crew in March-April. Laurel’s authentic regional recipe includes Pecorino Fiore Sardo in addition to parmigiano reggiano, and strongly recommended a lightly flavored extra virgin olive oil, like the Ligurian oil made from taggiasche olives. We stuck to the letter of her recipe and advice and the result was a delicate pesto that let the sweet heady summer basil shine in a creamy sea of pine nuts, parmigiano and pecorino. As for the method, I love the control to allow some rustic “piecy-ness” in the final sauce.
Pesto 2: Pesto al Mixer is a team sport!
What a joy to make a meal as a team with kids involved! That’s what we did for a lunch with the neighbors where we tested a game-changing pesto recipe using a COLD mini food processor and extra virgin olive oil.
My 13-year old son cut and washed the basil leaves while I put the mixer, metal blades, and extra virgin olive oil in the refrigerator to chill.
Our neighbor, 5-year old Amelie measured and put the ingredients into the mixer. (Again, no garlic for the kids!)
8-month old Cleo was our official tester, tasting pesto for the first time, and couldn’t get enough.
We couldn’t believe how green the pesto stayed using this ingenious method! The cold prevented oxidation and kept it super fresh.
Pesto 3: Mezzaluna
The Italian family I married into only accepted freshly made pesto with mortar and pestle OR a mezzaluna. Any use of a mixer would result in disappointment and complaining, so I always felt I wasn’t doing enough when I grabbed the mixer for a quick pesto fix. I’ve since come to my senses: any fresh pesto is delicious fresh pesto!
I do know many Italians who will buy supermarket jarred pesto, but fresh pesto has become such an easy habit in our house that we just don’t, and can’t, because we are spoiled rotten for the taste of freshly made.
The mezzaluna method is not a traditional Ligurian method but uses this brilliant Italian rocking chopper for fast homemade pesto with little cleanup. As with the mixer, I still grate the hard cheeses first to reduce the amount of bruising and heating of the basil to keep it bright, green, and fresh. Here’s a cheap and cheerful Made in Italy mezzaluna I found online (no, I don’t get a slice, haha). Watch as I make a little in a Day in the Life!
Make your weeknight summery special in just 30 minutes with the recipe below using mezzaluna or optional mixer method!
Pasta with simple basil pesto: mezzaluna or mixer method
Pasta al pesto Genovese semplice preparata con mezzaluna o mixer
FOR 4 PEOPLE
The ingredients
· 70 g basil leaves, rinsed and dried
· 30 g pine nuts
· 70 g parmigiano reggiano, grated
· 3 g /0.5 tsp salt
· 70 g / 5 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
· 360-400 g spaghetti, linguine, or trofie
· 4 soup spoons of pasta cooking water, reserved
The method
1) Wash the basil by placing it in a large bowl of cool water and swishing gently and lay it out to dry on a dishtowel. I often press the leaves gently between 2 towels to expedite the drying process while trying not to bruise the basil, which can make it turn black.
2) Once dry, place the basil on a large cutting board with the pinenuts, grated parmigiano, and salt. Rock the mezzaluna back and forth at different angles, cutting the ingredients. When the pesto becomes too scattered across the board, use the mezzaluna to push it back into a mound and continue to rock and cut. Repeat until you have semi-uniform small pieces. Optional: do this in a food processor or mixer!
3) Transfer mixture to a large bowl. Add extra virgin olive oil, stirring until combined. Optional: if using mixer, add olive oil directly into mixer, being careful not to overmix, making the pesto too mushy and heating too much from the blade rotation.
4) Fill a big tall pot with water and salt and set on high heat stove burner. Taste the water to make sure it’s salty like the sea (as and add more salt if needed).
5) When the water boils, add the pasta and cook to the package time (al dente), stirring occasionally.
6) Just before the pasta is ready, add 4 spoonfuls of pasta water to the pesto in the bowl and stir until the water is combined and the pesto is more thin and saucy.
7) Strain pasta immediately when ready and add to bowl.
Spoon or tong your pasta into pasta bowls. You can also let a privileged person eat their portion out of the big mixing bowl, saving a dish to wash and making that person feel special. My son loves to do this!
Buon appetito!
Serving tips:
· Serve with more parmigiano if you like more on top!
Notes:
Salt: It’s critical not to skimp. This salt is flavoring both your pasta and also your sauce in the form of pasta water. Without it, your dish with be insipid and nobody likes that!
Pasta: While you could use almost any pasta, a thin pasta like spaghetti, linguine or traditional Ligurian trofie provides the best balance between sauce and pasta. Watch my son making homemade trofie here. So much fun! So easy for him and so difficult for me!
Storage: if you have extra, place in a jar with a layer of olive oil on top to seal in the pesto and prevent oxidation. Pesto is best when eaten immediately but can be conserved this way for about a week in the fridge or 2-3 months in the freezer.
Buon appetito!
x Lolly
Thank you for sharing 😊 Heading to the market immediately!
Pesto a snap to make and endless variations and varieties