Basil Pesto Sauce
Pesto, basically a sauce made by crushing the ingredients using a 'mortar & pestle', is most commonly made with fresh basil, garlic, pine nuts and parmesan cheese. Genoa, capital city of the provence of Liguria, is famous for it's Basil Pesto. However, if you head south to Sicily your pesto is more likely to be 'red', made with tomato and almonds, or in Calabria where the base is roasted red peppers. It is a pretty easy dish to prepare as long as you follow these basic rules; use the freshest, young basil you can find, high quality EVOO and freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
Ingredients
3 to 4 dry measure cups basil leaves, packed
1 dry measure cup freshly grated parmesan
1 cup EVOO
3/4 dry measure cup pine nuts
4 to 5 cloves garlic
Coarse salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Directions
Lightly toast the pine nuts in a non-stick skillet and allow to cool. Thoroughly rinse the packed basil leaves and dry in a salad spinner and with paper towels. Place the basil and pine nuts in a food processor and pulse until all leaves are finely chopped. Rough chop the garlic by hand, then add to the food processor and pulse about 6 times. Pour the EVOO into the processor slowly as it runs. Add the cheese, pulse a few times, scrape down the sides of the processor with a spatula, add salt and pepper and pulse 3 more times. Check for seasoning.
If you make the pesto ahead of time, store in your refrigerator in a sealed container. Cover the pesto with a thin layer of EVOO before refrigerating. When you make this meal, remove the pesto from the fridge about 45 minutes ahead of time, allowing it to get to room temp. Basil Pesto Sauce should be the consistency of heavy cream to properly dress the pasta. Right before draining the salted and starchy pasta water, skim off a cup or so of the water and set aside. If the sauce is not the consistency of heavy cream, slowly add the reserved pasta water, a little at a time, until it is. In a large serving bowl, spoon 1/4 of the pesto sauce into the bottom of the bowl. Carefully transfer the hot, drained pasta into the serving bowl and dress with the remaining pesto sauce, stirring up from the bottom of the bowl. This recipe will dress 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of pasta. Tubular pastas, like rigatoni or ziti, take more sauce.
