Pistou is Provençal for pounded.
Pestare means “to pound or crush“ in Italian.
Hence--pestle–the pounder part of a pestle and mortar.
Pesto is a basil-based sauce and a wonder for summer.
Lovely and garlicky, it’s a quick sauce for pasta and good to drizzle on grilled vegetables.
It can also be stirred into a soup of young vegetables.
This recipe makes a decent amount.
100 g/4 oz basil leaves
4 cloves of garlic – crushed
25 g/1 oz pine nuts – optional
10 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
100 g/4 oz Parmesan cheese – grated
- Put the basil, garlic and pine nuts in a processor.
- Whizz, adding the oil until you have a smoothish sauce.
- Season and transfer to a bowl.
- Fold in the Parmesan and taste. Add more if you feel it needs it.
I’d bought three good bunches of basil at Castres market early Saturday morning–for 1 euro each.
I made the sauce in the afternoon, so just had to boil the wholewheat spagettini and hey presto!
Pesto pasta for dinner last night.
Summer’s here we thought–then it started raining…!
Robin Ellis 