Tag Archives: pesto

Broad bean pesto with almonds and mint

Posted on November 5, 2012 | 3 Comments

Broad beans have taken over my mother’s vegetable garden. Literally. My brother-in-law Chris planted dozens of plants and they have all done remarkably well. They are crowding over the garlic, the silver beet and the beetroot. They are taking over. Not that I mind. Though my mother minds a bit. This is the first time broad beans have been planted in the garden and I don’t think she is used to the way they bend over the garden beds when they are heavy with beans.

I love broad beans. Especially baby ones, the ones that you can’t find in the shops because they are picked much later by growers. A few months back I posted about a salad I make with broad beans and burrata. But tonight, owing to the warm weather, I felt like something more like finger food, to have with a glass of King Valley Petit Manseng that we had opened on Saturday night. So with my ipad on my lap, I searched the internet and found a fabulous looking broad bean hummus.

Hummus doesn’t sound very Italian – but looking closer at the ingredients, it wasn’t Middle Eastern either. It contained items I had in the pantry or in the courtyard like mint, lemon, olive oil and really, those ingredients are Mediterranean, so not far off Italy. This hummus (or dip or as I call it, pesto), is fresh, green and perfect. I added almond meal to the recipe I had found and it made it richer, denser and somehow meatier. I served it with thinly sliced crusty wholemeal sourdough bread. It was lovely to eat sitting on my inner city terrace, on this spring night. Luckily my mother’s garden is full of broad beans as I know I will make this again very soon!

Broad bean, mint and almond pesto
180g double-podded broad beans (I counted about 200 individual beans)
juice of 1/2 lemon
10 fresh mint leaves
2 tablespoons almond meal
3 tablespoons of olive oil (a mild one is better)
salt to taste
1 teaspoon lemon zest
crusty bread to serve

To double-pod the broad beans, peel the beans then blanch them in boiling water for about 4 minutes (if you have tough old beans, blanch up to 8 minutes). Plunge the blanched beans in iced water so the inner beans retain their bright green colour. Slip the beans out of their second shell and wash. Reserve a few to one side for garnish.

Place the beans in a small blender with the lemon juice and mint leaves. Whizz until a puree forms. Add the almond meal and some salt and whizz until well combined. Next add the olive oil, one tablespoon at a time and whizz after each addition. Remove the dip from the blender. Stir in the lemon zest and salt to taste.


Serve with thinly sliced crusty bread and a glass of chilled white wine.

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Posted in Antipasti, Recipes, Vegetarian

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Wild rocket pesto – picked today, gone tomorrow

Posted on October 14, 2012 | 5 Comments

This morning I was at my mother’s place and she told me that the gardener was coming tomorrow to clear some of the garden beds so we could plant tomatoes and basil. “Not where the wild rocket is?” I asked anxiously. “Yes”, she replied, “it will all be gone tomorrow”. Now by wild rocket (rucola selvadiga in my Italian dialect), I mean it grew there of its own accord. It had been planted there some time ago but was all pulled up at the end of the season. However it emerged again in early spring amongst the weeds. They don’t call the variety “wild” for no reason!

After we had lunch, armed with a basket, I collected as much of it as I could, hoping that I would have enough to make rocket pesto. I weighed it when I arrived home and I had just over 100g – which was just what I needed. My mother was horrified that I might make pesto using rucola. But I told her that Jamie Oliver makes it, so it must be okay. She grudgingly agreed (she just loves the way Jamie cooks – even though he is not Italian, he learnt to cook from an Italian, the inimitable Gennaro Contaldo!). It makes a nice change from the basil pesto I usually make.

My rocket pesto is a bit different from Jamie’s version – I add a few almonds as well as walnuts, plus some freshly grated lemon zest just before serving it on spaghetti. It adds a citrus zing to the peppery green taste of the rocket in the pesto. It made a perfect light spring dinner tonight. I loved the fact that 5 hours ago the rocket was growing, wildly, and now it has become a beautiful pesto, which will last a couple of weeks in the fridge (if my husband does not eat it all!). I might even take some to my mother’s and see what she thinks of it. I think she will like it.

You could also serve it on bread, topped with some tomatoes and bocconcini cheese – though you will need to reduce the amount of olive oil you use. My favorite way to have rocket pesto is with spaghetti. I am so happy I got to the rocket before the gardener did!

Wild rocket pesto with spaghetti
serves 4
100g wild rocket, washed
50 g walnuts, roughly chopped
15g blanched almonds, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, roughly chopped
50 g parmigiano (italian parmesan – I use Grana Padano) cheese, grated
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
lemon zest to serve
a few rocket leaves for garnish for each plate
400g spaghetti
Place the rocket in a blender, add a dash of olive oil and then whizz it a bit. Next add the garlic, then pulse for 10-20 seconds; next, add the nuts and pulse a few times depending on how coarse (or fine) you like the pesto. Keep the blender running and add the rest of the olive oil in a stream. You will need 1/2 cup if you are using the pesto on pasta – a bit less (maybe 1/3 cup) if you plan to use the pesto on bread. Add the parmigiano last, folding it through. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cook the spaghetti according to the directions on the packet. When cooked, drain, keeping a bit of the cooking water (a few tablespoons) with the pasta. Stir through the pesto. Add a good serve of lemon zest to each plate of spaghetti and garnish with a few rocket leaves.

If you don’t use all of the rocket pesto, store it in a glass jar in the fridge, covering it with a layer of extra virgin olive oil.

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Posted in Main course, Pasta, rice and gnocchi, Recipes, Vegetarian

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King Basil in pesto and puttanesca

Posted on January 30, 2012 | 7 Comments

The basil plants on my terrace have a heady aroma in late summer. Their sweet scent on the terrace inspires me to make pasta – either with pesto or alla puttanesca. Their lovely perfume is due to the presence of oil of cloves and there are many different types – sweet, purple, Greek, lemon and Thai.

I grow the sweet variety (sometimes called italian) basil, which is the most common. It pairs beautifully with so many other flavours – tomatoes, lemons, mint, cloves, chicken, some cheeses and walnuts just to name a few. In fact one of the best icecreams I have ever eaten was a peach and basil gelato that I had several years back in the beach side town of Grado, which is on the Adriatic coast close to Trieste, Italy. After my first taste of it in the afternoon, I went back for seconds that evening!

Basil is a key ingredient of many Italian foods. Basil pesto that we all know and love originates from Genova, Liguria, where basil grows lush and plentiful on the hills right by the sea. Liguria is also where you find the Cinque Terre, an amazingly beautiful part of the world, where there are 5 tiny picturesque villages perched on the Mediterranean Sea. Pesto reminds me of the many holidays I have had there in beautiful Monterosso so I have pesto whenever I can to bring back those wonderful memories.

Essentially pesto is a pounded paste (pesto is related to the word pestle, hence pounding of ingredients). The main ingredients are basil and pine nuts You can vary this with other herbs such as parsley, coriander or rocket and other nuts such as walnuts or cashews. In Sicily they even make red pesto (with tomatoes). It is fun to experiment! Traditional pesto genovese (from Genova) has basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, parmigiano and salt. My version is not traditional and I add a bit of parsley as well as the basil and throw in an anchovy for extra saltiness – this is what I mean about experimenting! It is traditionally ground by hand but it is so easy to whizz it up for half a minute or less with a stick blender and then put a dollop of it on pasta or on a slice of bread for a panino. It keeps for a few months in the fridge as long as you don’t add the parmigiano immediately, put it in a sterilised jar and cover it with extra virgin olive oil. You can add the parmigiano just before serving. My recipe for basil pesto is here.

Another favorite dish to make with basil is pasta puttanesca. It literally means “whore’s pasta”, probably because it is hot, spicy and has a bit of everything in it! The key ingredient apart from basil is fresh ripe tomatoes, which must be a vibrant red so that they contrast with the black olives, green basil and yellow pasta. It should be a feast for the eyes. I like to use thick spaghetti or tagliatelle when I make puttanesca and I generally make my own pasta unless I am in a real rush. You can peel and de-seed the tomatoes if you like but I tend not to as it is not a dish that requires much finesse; it is about the rich sweet and salty taste and the gorgeous contrasting colours on the plate. The basil leaves get thrown in at the end, just before serving. If you put them in before that, they go black and don’t look as appealing (though tastes the same). There are lots of versions but I make the one that mamma taught me to make – click here for the recipe. Enjoy pasta puttanesca on a summer evening, with some crusty bread to mop up the sauce and a glass of chilled pinot grigio. Paradiso!

There are many more recipes where basil is the king. One day I will try to make the peach and basil gelato I had in Grado, and when I do, I promise to share it on this blog!


Basil pesto

Makes 1 cup

1 bunch of basil (80g), leaves only, washed and dried
20g parsley leaves, washed and dried
3 medium cloves of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
3 tablespoons pine nuts
1 anchovy, roughly chopped
125ml olive oil
salt to taste
50g parmigiano, freshly grated (hand mix in at the end or leave it out to add just before using)

Put the basil, parsley, garlic, pine nuts, anchovy, salt and olive oil in a small food processor and process until it is smooth to your liking (it is ok for it to be chunky or smooth, it depends how you like it). If not using immediately, place in clean glass jars that you have sterilised by placing the jar and the separated lid in the oven at 110 degrees for about 15 minutes. Cover the pesto in the jar with a layer of olive oil to protect the pesto and place in the fridge until ready to use. Stir in parmigiano
 to taste when you are ready to use. If you are stirring it in pasta, save a bit of the hot salty cooking water and dilute the pesto with this so that it is evenly spread through the pasta. Top with more parmiggiano and a splash of olive oil if you like.

Pasta Puttanesca

Serves 2

2 cloves garlic, minced
4 anchovy fillets, roughly chopped
12 kalamata (or other black) olives, pitted and roughly chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon dried chilli flakes (less or more to taste, use fresh chilli if you have it)
500g ripe tasty tomatoes, roughly chopped into cubes
30 basil leaves (approximately) – they can be torn but I like to leave them whole, it depends on how big they are
175g pasta (tagliatelle, dried or fresh)
grated italian parmigiano to serve

Boil the water for the pasta and salt well (so it tastes like the sea). Prepare all your chopped ingredients and put to one side. The puttanesca sauce takes about six or seven minutes to complete so time it to coincide with your pasta being cooked al dente. Start cooking the pasta and when there are eight minutes left, heat the oil in a large fry pan on medium heat. Add the garlic, anchovies and chilli and cook until fragrant. This should take one to two minutes. Add the tomatoes and simmer for a few minutes. Add the olives and heat through. The tomatoes pieces should just be starting to fall apart but still have some shape. Add the drained and cooked pasta to the frypan with the sauce. Remove from the heat. Toss. Add washed basil leaves. Toss. Serve with plenty of grated italian parmigiano.

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Posted in Recipes, Sauces and condiments

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