Oxonian Pesto

Homemade pesto is a very useful item to have in your cupboard to feed those vegan friends that occasionally drop by. If you do intend to be able to feed your vegan friends you need to leave the cheese out, or just make a few jars without the cheese. I believe you can buy soy flakes to achieve the creamy effect without cheese.

Back in the days I had my own vegetable and herb garden in Oxford I used to have an annual pesto making session, much like some people have an annual jam making session. Thinking about it I can almost smell the scents of the process. Pesto keeps well, but can also be frozen, so one session tended to be enough and left enough to spare to give plenty away to friends.

I always grew several varieties of basil, mostly out of interest. For pesto I tended to use sweet Genovese basil. The best basil leaves come from plants that have not yet flowered. If you see the plume of flowers starting in your plants the best thing to do is to pinch them out and get your ingredients ready :)

This is a dish with only a few ingredients that does not get heated. The taste of the final product is mostly determined by the quality of the ingredients.  The 2 most important items for that taste are the basil and the olive oil. It is definitely better with home grown basil and the right oil will have a lovely fragrant smell when you open the bottle.

Materials:

* Fresh basil crowns (a basil crown is a set of 4 basil leaves in a star shape).
* Extra virgin olive oil.
* 100 gr Pine nuts.
* 5-6 Strong garlic cloves (I grew french purple garlic).
* Sea salt crystals.
* A piece of Peccorino Romano.
* A piece of Parmigiano Reggiano.
* Pestle and mortar.

Steps:

* Pinch out plenty (20 ish) of basil crowns from your plants and wash and dry them gently.
* Peel the garlic cloves and cut them into chunks.
* Grate some of the peccorino and the parmigiano, quite finely.
* Start with about a heaped spoonful of sea salt and crush these with the pestle.
* Add the pine nuts and garlic in the mortar and start crushing these too.
* Add some oil and and crush some more.
* Make sure it is all mixed up, if it is too stiff to move in the mortar add some more oil.
* Take out the mix from the bowl and start crushing the shredded basil in some oil.
* Add the mix gradually back in and add in more oil until the mixture is nicely loose.
* Now start adding the cheese in equal quantities until the mixture looks nicely creamy. You are aiming for a spring green semi oily semi creamy mass.

Pesto can be frozen in ice cube trays or kept in jars in the fridge. It can be served on its own on top of a nice pasta, or mixed into sauces to spice them up.