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PESTO SAUCE

This is my version of green pesto, I sometimes find that the garlic element in home made pesto can be rather harsh so I like to roast off my garlic cloves to give a lovely mellow garlic-y falavour. Also many people use parmesan cheese, but I tend to favour pecorino purely out of personal taste, but parmesan will work just as well. I find this sauce is best made in a good heavy pestle and mortar (granite for example), it can be very hard work otherwise. If this is a problem simply combine your ingredients in a food processor.

Recipe posted by

Ingredients

  • Gluten Free
  • Vegetarian
  • 1 large bunch of basil
  • 4 or 5 cloves of garlic
  • 2-3 tbsp pine nut kernels
  • 125g Pecorino cheese
  • Olive oil
  • Salt to season

These quantities are a guide only, you may wish to alter quantities according to taste and desired consistency.

Method

Serves: 4-6

  1. Roast the garlic cloves skins on in a hot oven with a little olive oil until the garlic inside is soft and sticky. This usually takes about 10-15 minutes depending on the oven.
  2. In a dry frying pan place the pine nuts and lightly toast over a medium heat, gently tossing them about. The toasting process happens fairly quickly so you must watch the pine nuts like a hawk to avoid burning them.
  3. Squeeze in the roasted garlic flesh into a heavy weight pestle and mortar and grind to a paste. Then tear in the basil leaves and bash and grind until thoroughly broken down and an almost paste like consistency.
  4. Pour a good glug of olive oil into the mixture and combine. Add the pecorino and bash into the mixture until thoroughly combined.
  5. Add the pine nuts. Add more olive oil if you need to slacken the sauce.
  6. Serve tossed through freshly cooked pasta. Note- If you are not keen on the idea of whole pine nuts, these can be bashed in just before the cheese is added.

Please note:

While all of Nigella 's recipes are of course tested extensively, nigella.com do not test any of the community recipes, so cannot verify the results or answer queries concerning them.

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