Fresh basil pesto has come to define much of what Americans like best about Italian cooking. This simple blend of basil, garlic and olive oil, so easy to make, brings a bold depth of flavor to every dish it comes to. The miracle of a well-made pesto is its versatility. Simply slathered on a crust of bread or spooned over a slice of fresh tomato, it can make you swoon with delight.
Tossed with pasta or into a risotto, it is perfect. Rub Basil Pesto onto a salmon filet before pan roasting with a few stalks of Broccoli Raab for a simple weekday (one pan) dinner - lean, nutritious and delicious. Forked into a hot baked potato or folded into a cheese omelet, pesto works wonders. I could go on.

At Howie’s Artisan Pizza we use pesto in several variations in our pizza, pasta and sandwiches. It’s everywhere. We have learned that if you replace the olive oil with cream in the pesto, it makes an unctuous sauce for pizza. We add a bit of fresh parsley to the pesto we use for our bucatini with prawns, to retain a verdant color and vibrant fresh flavor. Recently, I discovered that a dab of pesto mixed into aioli is strangely delicious. We serve it on our tuna sandwich, a remarkable construction on house made focaccia, with giardiniera and sliced tomatoes.
I have been using the term ‘pesto’ and ‘basil pesto’ interchangeably, but in fact there are many different types of pesto in ‘la cucina Italiana’. There is Pesto Trapenese, which is a curious mixture of almonds and tomatoes, Sicilian Pesto which incorporates ricotta cheese into a puree of fresh tomato, arugula pesto and many others. The name pesto is derived from the Italian verb ‘pestare’ meaning ‘to pound’ or ‘to crush’ and refers to anything that is pounded, typically in a mortar and pestle, to a puree. Perhaps in future missives we’ll explore them.
The pesto I’m going to share with you now is indeed a fresh basil pesto. Some recipes for pesto still call for a mortar and pestle. In a modern Italian household, it would not be unheard of to make pesto with a mortar and pestle, but it would not be the norm. If you’ve ever used a mortar and pestle, you’d know why. I won’t belabor the point. At Howie’s we use a Vitamix blender to make pesto, which is not functionally different from the bar blender you have in your kitchen cupboard. It’s more powerful, but that’s only important because we make pesto a gallon at a time.
We blanch our basil (and parsley) before proceeding with the recipe. Blanching breaks down the enzymes in the basil leaves that promote oxidation. All restaurants do this. Also, this recipe calls for pine nuts, a traditional ingredient in Pesto Genovese. Pine nuts are oddly expensive these days and are often hard to find in retail shops. It’s okay to substitute raw, unsalted cashews. The pine nuts don’t contribute any flavor to the pesto, but rather they aid in emulsifying the sauce. Lastly, we freeze our pesto immediately after preparation in portion size containers (one cup of pesto will sauce four portions of pasta) and you should too. Pesto loses its vibrancy in only a matter of hours.

To prepare this recipe you’re going to need a bar blender and a digital scale. If you don’t have these tools, get them. All serious cooks, professional and inspired amateurs, should have a scale. They can be bought for as little as twenty dollars. At the restaurant we use a Taylor TE10FT. It costs sixty dollars on Amazon, and it will last you a lifetime.
Basil Pesto Recipe
110 grams basil leaves
40 grams parsley leaves
50 grams water
300 grams olive oil
100 grams garlic, whole cloves, peeled
50 grams pine nuts, raw unsalted
1 tbsp salt
100 grams Parmesan - Reggiano, grated
Into a pot of rapidly boiling water add the basil and parsley leaves. Count to ten and then immediately remove the blanched leaves into an ice bath.
Drain the leaves, squeeze gently to remove excess water and put aside.
Place all the ingredients, except the grated cheese, into the container of a
tabletop (bar) blender. Cover tightly.
Work the ingredients to a coarse paste. Stir the mixture (turn the blender off)
once or twice if needed. We don’t want a perfectly smooth puree or a chunk
condiment.
Empty the blender into a bowl and stir the cheese into the pesto by hand.
Taste for salt and adjust if necessary.
Watch Howie's Video Tutorial on how to make Pesto
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