When you’re growing your own food, you quite often end up with large quantities of a certain food all at once.
For me this week, it was salad rocket.
I love rocket but there is definitely a limit to how much I can eat.
So I decided to make rocket pesto.
Most people are familiar with the green Italian sauce made from basil, garlic, pine nuts, lemon juice, parmesan and olive oil. The word “pesto” itself means “crushed” and the ingredients would traditionally have been crushed or pounded to a paste using a pestle and mortar.
There are many, many combinations of ingredients that can make a tasty pesto although traditional recipes mostly contain olive oil.
Here are a few variations to consider:
- Swap basil for spinach, rocket, kale, beetroot greens. You can also use cooked vegetables like beetroot, carrots or aubergine.
- Walnuts, cashews, almonds, pumpkin seeds, hazelnuts, pistachios, sunflower seeds could replace pine nuts. Roast them for a different flavour.
- Parmesan can be substituted with Manchego, Pecorina, hard goat’s cheese, or left out entirely.
- Olive oil could be replaced or blended with other good quality oils.
The limit here is imagination and the contents of your store cupboard.
My rocket pesto contained rocket, olive oil, pumpkin seeds and garlic. I used a small electric chopper (my food processor has recently given up after many years of service) and although this was time consuming it was totally doable.
Pesto making is entirely a matter of taste – I added lemon juice and plenty of black pepper but no salt because the olive oil I used has quite a salty flavour. I didn’t have any parmesan so couldn’t add any, but as I was using it as a topping for salmon we didnt really miss it.
Many basic recipes can be found for pesto if you want a more accurate ingredient list.
Clair has made pesto this weekend too: using the green tops from her freshly harvested carrots. She mixed them with pumpkin seeds, garlic, parmesan, olive oil, salt and pepper. She served the pesto over roasted carrots. I’ll definitely be trying that one.
Pesto has the added advantage of versatility. It’s so much more than a simple, stir-through pasta sauce.
- Use it as a dip – on its own or stirred through yoghurt or cream cheese.
- On a pizza – in place of tomato sauce or in blobs amongst the toppings.
- As a herb crust – particularly good spread on salmon or chicken and topped with breadcrumbs and parmesan before baking.
- For vegetables – drizzle over hot boiled potatoes or other veg.
- As a dressing – mix into your favourite dressing recipe.
Pesto will keep for a couple of days in the fridge and a little longer in an airtight jar with a covering of olive oil. If you end up with more than you can use in a couple of days, most pestos freeze well (although their colour may not be so vibrant). Freezing in ice cube trays and popping the frozen cubes out into a container is a great way to create individual portions.
What’s your favourite pesto recipe and how do you use it?
Having way too much fun!