Playing with pesto

The herb garden is enjoying the hot summer weather and quite a few plants have become rather rampant. After a visit to a professional herb farm a few years ago, I did learn that cutting back chives mid-summer is a good thing to do. The basil is also about to bolt so, in an attempt to keep it going, that too needs a prune. Then there is the parsley which always seems to recover from a severe harvest.

The abundance of basil immediately made me think of making pesto and it took only minutes to gather 60g of basil which I popped into the mini blender along with a tablespoon of pine nuts, 25g of grated Pecorino Romano, a clove of garlic, a grinding of salt and 6 tablespoons of olive oil.

I then came across an idea for a Spanish inspired pesto. This had slightly different ratios of herbs, nuts, cheese and oil and this seemed to make a richer sauce. For this I used 50g almonds, 50g grated Manchego, 60g parsley, 1teaspoon of sherry vinegar, a clove of garlic and 100ml olive oil.

Using this recipe I followed with a chive, Parmesan and walnut pesto, omitting the vinegar. As you may imagine, this is quite strong but still delicious.

I've already stirred some of the basil pesto through some freshly cooked new potatoes which went brilliantly with some roasted salmon, olives, green beans, anchovies and tomatoes. The rest has been potted up and spread between the fridge and freezer and I'll enjoy stirring them through pasta and potatoes and using as a drizzle on fish and meat and to pep up salad dressing over the coming months.

If you too have an abundance of herbs I do urge you to give it a try. If you have a blender it takes just minutes and the results taste so much better than any pesto you can buy in a jar. I promise!