Freshly made Pesto from the scratch…

Fundamental key to any great dish is the best quality ingredient. I highly recommend using good quality Olive oil and Parmesan and also make sure basil leaves are fresh and crisp. Old and dull leaves will not give a bright green color.

Also, more importantly, I make my pesto in traditional mortar and pestle instead of grinding in a mixer grinder as crushing in mortar pestle releases the real oils of nuts and flavors from leaves retaining the bright green color as opposed to mixer which doesn’t grind but cut the leaves and gives a dark green-blackish color.

Check other dips/ sauce like cheese sauce, marinara sauce, salsa.

RECIPE:

INGREDIENTS:

• Basil leaves : 2 handful
• Walnuts: 5-6
• Garlic: 1
• Green chili (optional):1
• Parmesan: 1/2 cup
• salt :to taste (as we are adding lots of cheese, just a pinch of salt should be sufficient)
• Olive oil

METHOD:

• Start with nuts. Take walnuts and start grinding. It takes some time when oil starts to come out and it starts coming together as a dry paste.
• At this point add leaves and salt and continue grinding. add garlic and chili. Salt helps in breaking leaves. Keep grinding till it becomes paste and no big chunks of garlic or leaves seen.
• At this point, add Parmesan and mix. Add olive oil in sufficient quantity to bring it together and give a gooey consistency.
• Use it fresh on pasta, bread or store in air-tight container in fridge.

Note: To avoid oxidization (black colorization) when storing in fridge, make sure container is air tight and pour olive oil on top.