Pesto. Don't get me started.

Buongiorno a tutti.
Given the abundance of delicious produce this particularly warm summer has brought us, let's talk about a very popular herb sauce. Many of you have had it, yet too few restaurants do it well. Judging by the quality of the pesto you find around, I am often surprised by its popularity. Trust me.

It's a sauce that requires no oven to be turned on or burners to be lit. It's raw, it's earthy, it's simple and it coats your mouth with the one of the essential aromas of summer: Basil.
Now, for some peculiar reason people have decided that they would improve on this sauce and add lemon, various cheeses, butter, onions, sun-dried tomatoes, strawberries with cream (well, maybe not the berries, but I am Italian and do need a little hyperbole to state a point, you get the idea). Nothing wrong with that once you have it down, but let's get back to basics: The reason why it became so popular. After all, when Sinatra launched his Italian food line in 1975 he gave pesto a starring role.
Pesto is supposed to be simple harmony of few ingredients, so you can easily make it at home with a very moderately stocked pantry. Really. And you can even freeze it for later use. I am serious.

Genoese pesto
(Pesto alla Genovese)

You will need:

Basil leaves: 2 cups tightly packed (no stems, washed and patted dry with a paper towel, organic and as fresh as  possible, those leaves should look bright green and shiny from the essential oils you will enjoy shortly)

Pine nuts: 1/4 cup (toasted in the oven 7 minutes at 350 degrees)

Garlic: 2 medium cloves, peeled

Extra Virgin Olive Oil: 1/3 (start here) to 1/2 cup, depending on taste (no regular Olive Oil, please, we do want some flavor here, eh? Bariani perhaps, I am a big admirer; they are local and sell all over San Francisco)

Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano: 1/2 Cup, grated (Trader Joe's is fine)

Pecorino Romano: 1/2 Cup, grated (NOT the Trader Joe's, they have a new importer and it does not taste like anything, if you need a vendor please ask me, it needs to be spicy, peppery and savory)
If you want, you can omit one of the cheeses and use a full cup of the other. Adjust the pepper accordingly, more if you use just the Parmigiano, less if just the Pecorino.

Salt and pepper to taste (that pepper is freshly ground, right?)

That's it.

Now, pesto in Italian means crushed, as it used to be made in a mortar and crushed with a pestle, but today... use the food processor, I won't complain, it works well. Excessive purists be damned.
I do want to give you a word of advice, though. There is a reason why the pestle was used for this recipe. The essential oils in basil are contained in the little veins on the leaves. If you simply cut them in the food processor, the leaves get cut to pieces, but on the individual pieces the veins stay intact. When you crush them with a pestle, you tear the leaves.
What I do to simulate that is I put the washed and dried leaves in a plastic bag and either bruise the leaves with the back of a large knife, or even better I use my rolling pin and roll over them a few times until they are bruised. That releases more of the oils and makes it taste like basil quite a bit more. Try it.

Once your ingredients are ready, put the oil, garlic, basil and pine nuts with 1/4 to 1/2 tsp tsp of salt (depending on personal preference) and a little pepper in the food processor. Pulse and do not just let it liquefy, so that you have a way of making sure that it is all getting ground evenly. When it starts to come together taste for salt and garlic, if necessary add some. Remember the cheeses are salty so don't add too much salt. Garlic flavor should be mild, but it should be present. Leave as much texture as you like, it should be fairly chunky but homogeneous and not too liquid, like a thick batter for cookies.

Take it out. Now you have two options.

One, put the sauce in a freezer ziplog bag and freeze it; this way (without the cheese) it holds well for a while, and mid-week if you have guest, you thaw it for 2 hours add the cheese and you are ready to roll.

Two, add the cheese to the sauce in a serving bowl, cook a pound of pasta al dente (texture, people, texture); linguine love the sauce, but rigatoni or little shells store some of it inside and become a little flavor explosion, can't go wrong there. Add a couple of Tbs of water from the pasta to dilute it a hair so that it flows and coats the pasta properly when you toss it, serve and enjoy.
A perfect slice of summer.
Ciao,
Marco Flavio