Best pesto ever

It's harvest time in Northern New England and like every year for the past 20, I'm cutting my basil and putting up a year's worth of pesto. Everyone claims my pesto is the best theyve had anywhere. Now you can have some too.

Step 1: Ingredients

1 food processor, grating and chopping blades

basil
3 cloves - 1 bulb garlic
1/4 lb good parmesan cheese
1/2 stick (2 oz) butter
1/2 c extra virgin olive oil
parsley
salt/pepper
1/2 c pine (pignola) nuts

1 ice cube tray (for freezing)

Comments

[Martijn_S]

Ok, i get it, the pine nuts are mentioned elsewhere, sorry :)

[Martijn_S]

Parsley and Butter are not part of the traditional ingredients for pesto, however i don't doubt that it could be a good idea to use some. I never put all the ingredients together in a food processor, i crush everything separately, i make a paste with the garlic, i crush the pine nuts (u don't mention them by the way, Pesto should absolutely have Pine nuts !), i grate the cheeses (Parmesan AND Pecorino), then i crush the basil (u can use a food processor there) after that i start mixing, tasting, mixing, tasting again, the ingredients are never the same, basil can be more or less dry, the pine nuts to. i nevr add any salt, but i use pepper, long indian pepper to be precise (it's worth a try) Peeling the garlic without removing it's center is a bad idea, the center is hard to digest, and is the biggest cause of bad breath. Your basil looks great !

[LDW]

Brilliant recipe! We have wild garlic round here, and come next spring I'm going to try Wild Garlic pesto. Yum!

[flactemnad]

You might try raw cashews for the nuts too if you have them cheap. (Trader Joes for mine) They are rich and tasty! I usually have them on hand for one reason or another, so they get used more often than pine nuts for me.

[neillsun]

Looks good! I make mine with pecorino cheese as well as parmesan. I also roast the rine nuts first. Really like the idea of freezing for pesto-on-demand!!

[backcountry]

Cool. I never thought of roasting the pine nuts, I'll try that for my next batch. Thanks for the suggestion. I also notice that I forgot to mention adding the salt and pepper. I use 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper and add it to the food processor along with the basil leaves.

[Dr. Cool]

Looks tasty