Pesto

Pesto is a wonderful, versatile sauce that hails from the Genoa region of Italy, located in the north of the country. A city as famous for giving birth to Christpher Colombus as it is for its food. 

Here we have made some adjustments to the traditional recipe, making it dairy free and vegan. 

With its vibrant colour and mix of intense flavours that combine to make a coruscating  sauce.

Pesto can be used as a simple sauce for pasta, or as an accompaniment for more elaborate dishes.

You are only limited by your imagination

We are using a mortar and pestle to mix our pesto. You can use a food processor if you prefer, although the heat generated by a food processor with alter the flavour of the sauce. 

As always, remember the mantra,

Time

Temperature

Patience 

Grinding your sauce in a mortar and pestle may take a little longer, however the slower pace and less heat generated, will allow the flavours to amalgamate further. 

Resulting in a higher quality sauce.

As always, this is about time, patience and temperature. 

Choose quality ingredients: fresh basil, fresh garlic, and fresh lemons. We recommend honest to goodness brand nutritional yeast and morella grove extra virgin olive oil.

Buon Appetito!

Ingredients:

3 bunches of fresh basil (800g) 

70g blanched almonds ( roasted) 

35g fresh lemon juice

230g Extra virgin olive oil

30g whole peeled garlic cloves

15g nutritional yeast flakes

10g salt ( We recommend murray river pink salt ) 

 Method:

Preheat your oven to 160C.

Line with a sheet of baking paper,

Spread the blanched almonds evenly over the tray and place in the oven.

Cook for 8-12 minutes or until the almond kernels are evenly toasted.

Be careful not to over cook the almonds, as this will make them bitter resulting in a bitter pesto.

Allow the almonds to cool completely.

Pick the leaves from the basil. 

You can add a little stalk, though try and avoid adding too much, the thicker parts of the basil stalks will be woody and won’t break down, resulting in an unpleasant texture. 

In sauces like pesto, texture is just as important as taste. 

Juice your lemons and make sure to strain out any seeds or pulp.

Weigh the rest of the ingredients, add basil and lemon juice and 100g of the olive oil to your mortar and pestle. 

Grind the basil, lemon juice and oil until a rough paste begins to form, add garlic and salt and continue to grind until combined. 

Add the rest of the olive oil, the nutritional yeast and the cooled almonds and mix well. 

If you are using a high speed blender, add oil, lemon juice and then the rest of the ingredients and pulse until the sauce comes together.

If using a stick blender, add all the ingredients into a jug or tall ( 30 cm minimum) container and blend at intervals, moving the head of the blender gently up and down.

Once the sauce is at a consistency that you are happy with, ( we recommend keeping the pesto a little rough) check the seasoning, adding more salt if needed. 

At this stage the garlic flavour will be well pronounced. 

As the acidity of the lemon juice amalgamated with the other ingredients, this strong garlic flavour will mellow. 

If you are using this sauce as a dressing or on a sandwich, you may want to reduce the garlic content by half to 15g.

If you use a fresh garlic the flavour will be sweeter. The older the garlic, the more astringent. 

The pesto will keep in an air tight container in the fridge for about three days, the colour will fade and the flavour will mellow over time, we recommend using the pesto immediately.