Pesto - Going Nuts # 3

Recipe done in Oct 2010.

Yes you didn't read it wrongly, 2010. LOL. Had been waiting for a suitable theme.

Actually before this, I didn't know how pesto really tasted like. I had some pesto on pasta before in Italiannies or Tony Romas, but I didn't know what it was. My pasta didn't taste any tooo special. Just a hit of herbs, that's it.

Until I saw Swee San making her own pesto, I only knew what pesto is. Yeah, it sounds hard to believe. But I grew up eating Chinese and Malaysian food, knows heck about Italian food except bolognese and Pizza.

My mother in law brought back 1 ½ Ibs of pine nuts from US. So, in order to use it up, I tried making pesto.

After making Hakka Thunder Tea, I was a bit scared of the pesto turning brown immediately after grinding. I read, that slightly blanching it might prevent it from oxidizing too soon. Or coat with oil. I chose the latter. So, before the leaves are ground, I put in oil, so that it will coat the leaves as it grinds and prevent it from oxidizing.

The usual way is dumping everything into a food processor and blitz. But it doesn’t work the same when it’s with a mill. A lot of Malaysians possess a blender mill set, rather than a food processor.

I tried 2 methods.
1. Mill the nuts first, then only add the leaves and oil and mill together.
2. Put everything together and mill.

Which is better? The first. The nuts are evenly ground, whereas the 2nd method leaves the nuts in uneven chunks.
The instructions for this pesto is written for use with the mill.

Pesto

Recipe source: WendyinKK
Recipe referred : Swee San's

100gm pinenuts
1 pack of sweet basil (50gm with stems)
1 clove garlic
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp olive oil

1. Lightly toast pine nuts in a pan until lightly golden. Set aside to cool.
2. Rinse basil and shake off water. Remove leaves from stems. Set aside.
3. Put pine nuts into a dry mill and process until fine. Remove half the milled nuts, set aside.
4. Put in 1 Tbsp of olive oil, ½ clove of garlic, ½ tsp salt and finally put half the basil leaves into the mill.
5. Process for few seconds or until fine.
6. Repeat milling process with the balance of milled pine nuts, oil, garlic, salt and basil.

*Can add more oil if you find it dry, but I'm ok with this amount
** If you are using food processor, just dump in everything and blitzzz.

Homemade Pesto tasted oh so goooood, compared to store bought or even restaurant served. And I could taste the nuts instead of just smelling olive oil.

Some of you may want to know, how to eat Pesto? You can either spread on bread, toast or even top your pizza with it. Or just mix with freshly boiled pasta and toss. Like how we will toss our noodle with soy sauce <3, love it!

The amount I made was enough to dress 4 servings of pasta.




Vermicelli pasta tossed with pesto, topped with powdered parmesan and more pine nuts, yummy!


That was almost 2 years ago. I was buying sweet basil.
Now, I have lot of Sweet Basil in my garden, too much that I can't finish up.
They grow faster than weeds!