Ok pesto pasta time.
I can’t really give you exact weights as I always do it by taste as I go along … but i’ll give you a rough idea.
It’s all to do with the preparation as to how it turns out.
Get some basil (save small sprig’s of a 2-4 leaves off the top of the plant to garnish at the end, 1 sprig per person), I use about half of a plant per person, shred it in a blender with 1-2 decent sized garlic cloves per person (depending on how much you like garlic), but (this is what I mean about the preparation making a difference …) it has to be one that chops it, not blitz’s it as if it turns into a pulp it looses it’s flavor quick. literally only give it a few seconds in there, in a hand full of quick pulses as it’ll get blended again later with the other stuff.
Get about 50 grams of pine nuts per person (mby use 40g per person as my pesto is pretty nutty, just there’s 150g in a packet, and I’m normally cooking for 3, so don’t want to have left over nuts lol – but 35-40g per person is ideal) and lightly toast on a low heat in a frying pan with no oil or anything. When they are all golden brown take half whilst hot, and blend them with a blitzer and turn into a paste, take the other half alow to cool a fair bit and throw in with the basil. Give another handful of pulses on the chopping blender till there are no whole nuts left, but again it’s v-important not to over blend the basil. Also toast about 50g of raw cashew nuts per person separately, roughly crush half and keep the other half whole and put to one side.
V-finely grate some Parmesan cheese, roughly 50g per person but don’t put it in with anything yet as some will be for topping the dish of later.
Get everything you have so far, except the garnish sprigs and mby 10g Parmesan per person and put in a mixing bowl. Add a good glugging of olive oil, either very light extra vergin (make sure you taste it first as some extra virgin can have a very very strong flavor and this will ruin the pesto. I normally use normal light olive oil as it’s a safer bet when you don’t know the taste of the oil (I’m still trying to find the perfect brand of olive oil for this).
NOTE: when I say a good glugging I mean u need to use a lot of oil, enough so the ingredients when mixed doesn’t look dry in the slightest, and when being mixed mixes fairly easily. Give it a quick mix before you put the oil in so you can see how hard it is to mix, add the oil whilst mixing till it starts to mix easy … then add a little more.
Add a small pinch of cayenne pepper if you like (but not tooo much as it’s not nice when actually hot), a tiny pinch of salt, a fair amount of ground black pepper and a tiny squeeze of lemon. (do all these last bits bit by bit and taste as you go along till you get it how you want as too much of one can’t be undone).
The pesto is pretty much done, best to leave for at least a few hours in the fridge, over night is ideal.
Now for the dish …
Fry some diced onions with one or two garlic cloves chopped and added in half way through cooking (you can leave out the garlic if you want as there’s some in the pesto already, just raw and cooked garlic give different tastes). You can either also cook some bacon at the same time in another pan, or if you really want to push the boat out add sliced parma ham at the end.
Get the pasta (best to use fresh pasta spirals, as the spirals are ideal for holding the pesto on them) on with a little oil and salt in the water. And make sure you have a full kettle of water ready to boil in time for the pasta when i’s cooked,
when the onions have started to soften chuck the cashews nuts in and add a little more oil, not too much as the dish will be too oily, but just a tad more so the cashews don’t get too dry. Leave this on a low heat whilst everything else cooks. just before everything’s ready chop up the bacon into strips and chuck in with your onions for the last few mins (you could use lardons from the start, I’ve started doing this).
When everything is cooked and the pasta is al dente (“with bite”) strain the pasta and poor the boiling water from the kettle over it to remove the starch. Chuck your pasta back in the pot (give it a little wipe out first) then add the pesto and onions bacon etc. and give it a good mix so the pesto evenly coats all the pasta and the onions/bacon is spread out through all the pasta.
serve on a plate with a sprinkle of the left over Parmesan then crushed black pepper and then your sprig of basil. Always good to cook some garlic bread with this dish too and serve that on the side of the plate.
If cooked right, the whole cashews should burst in the mouth with all the oniony garlic flavor juice coming out every time you get one. 🙂
I’ve not put down the timings for everything to go on, as off the top of my head it’ll take too long to work out so the order of what to do first might be slighly more time consuming then it has to be … I just kinda know as I cook it, so you’ll have to work that out ur self.
Might take a few tries to get right as it’s all about the balance of ingredients, so don’t feel afraid to change amounts to taste, this is just a rough guide to amounts as like i say, i mostly do it by eye and taste as i go.
ENJOY!!!!
