Italian cuisine is famous for its sauces. However, you don’t have to go to Italy or a European restaurant to enjoy the wonderful taste of pesto sauce. Anyone can make this sauce on their own.
It is believed that pesto sauce first appeared in the Roman Empire, however, the first documentary evidence mentioning the preparation of this sauce dates back to the mid-19th century. The sauce is most often served with pasta, used when cooking soups, and some even spread it on bread and crackers. There are many variations of pesto, but there are 3 ingredients found in every recipe– this is basil and cheese. Traditionally, the color of the sauce is green, but if you add sun-dried tomatoes during cooking, it will turn red.
You will need:
Cooking method
The classic method of making pesto involves grinding the ingredients in a mortar, but to save time and effort, you can mix the ingredients in a blender. It is this method that is currently used not only by housewives, but even by chefs of Italian restaurants.
You will need:
Cooking method
You will need:
Cooking method
You will need:
Cooking method
You will need:
Cooking method
You will need:
Cooking method
You will need:
Cooking method
It is quite widely used in many culinary masterpieces both in Europe and Asia. Moreover, in every folk cuisine it is considered traditional. In Italy, Spain, Germany, France, the recipes for this sauce are very different from one another. It is very popular in the Mediterranean and has a dark green color (due to its ingredients), in addition, the classic dish requires the presence of extra virgin olive oil and Every Italian housewife should learn how to prepare pesto sauce. Why do they eat it? The question she immediately asks herself. It is quite thick in consistency, and when served as an independent dish, it can be served in any gravy boat or in an ordinary small plate. If desired, you can even put it on plates with snacks; it does not spread very much.
It’s no secret that they go well with pasta, spaghetti and other pasta products in Italian cuisine. Since their preparation is a kind of art, they are served on beautiful large plates, which in Russia would most likely be used for snacks.
One of the easiest recipes for making pesto sauce is the classic version.
However, each housewife can choose its flavor shades for herself, then she will replace the olive oil, taken as the basis of a traditional dish, with some other vegetable oil, purple and Parmesan cheese. Of course, this will no longer be a classic European delicacy, but it is quite similar and quite edible and recognizable. It’s not difficult to figure out what pesto sauce can be used with, but first you need to prepare it.
So, the necessary ingredients for this sauce: one hundred grams of parmesan, two hundred grams of olive oil, three to four cloves of garlic, 100 grams of cashew nuts, a large bunch of green basil, salt.
Having purchased everything you need, you can start cooking. Italian housewives grind all the ingredients of this sauce themselves using a mortar. However, lazy people can do this in a blender or meat grinder. The word "pesto" is derived from the Italian verb, which translates as "to press" or "to grind." Therefore, the classic version involves completely manual work.
So, we chop the ingredients of the sauce in a convenient way for us: nuts, basil, garlic. Grind the cheese on a very fine grater to make it fluffy. This is necessary to make pesto sauce. Why do they eat it, given that its consistency resembles gruel? In principle, there are no special recommendations, but a white gravy boat is ideal simply because the combination of white and dark green is quite impressive.
Let's move on to the next stage. Mix the nuts with garlic and basil thoroughly, add olive oil. Then add the grated cheese and mash everything well again. If necessary, add salt, preferably coarse sea salt. To add a special aroma, you can add a few grated mint leaves, and a little aromatic black pepper for a spicy kick. It must be stored in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator.
A wonderful table decoration would be a dish of fresh white bread, lightly toasted and spread with pesto sauce. Why else do you eat this original seasoning? Basically, from any dish. And with what? This can be canapés, various varieties, meat, fish or potatoes. Ideal with tomatoes and mozzarella.
Anyone who has been to Italy has almost certainly tried pesto sauce; a photo depicting a dish with it adorns the album of almost any traveler.
It would seem that there is so much in our kitchen, all kinds of mechanisms and devices - mixers, blenders, food processors. However, no, no, but you have to take out the good old mortar and work like in the old days. Tell me - why? For example, to prepare Italian Pesto sauce - well, he doesn’t like new products, he prefers that the main ingredients are ground with a mortar and pestle. The sauce has some kind of energy that can only be created by hand.
The authorship of Pesto sauce is attributed to the Persians; it got its name from the word trample, grind, crush. Any eatery in Italy will serve you this sauce, and everywhere it will be different. The original sauce is green in color because it contains the obligatory green basil leaves. It is served with pasta or lasagna, sometimes in soups, or even simply spread on bread or toast. According to legend, sailors took it with them on long voyages, and when they landed on land, they smelled of basil. The red color is obtained by adding tomatoes, but not fresh, but always dried.
There are no exact proportions for the sauce. However, the main ingredients are almost constant. First of all, it's basil. Only green leaves are taken, red is not suitable - it has too strong an aroma and can turn the dish into an unattractive color. Parmesan is a necessary ingredient; it is most suitable among hard cheeses. Some try to replace it with suluguni or sour cream cheeses, but these are already variations on the Pesto theme.
Pine nuts are the seeds of the Italian pine tree. They are much larger in size than Siberian cedar nuts. Simpler versions add walnuts, cheaper cheeses and vegetable oil. Sometimes mint and sheep cheese are added to the sauce. For Italian pasta you will need pasta. Pumpkin Pesto is prepared from pumpkin seeds; wild garlic has taken root in Russia instead of basil.
Pesto sauce - the best recipes
A simple sauce will add variety to meat and fish. It’s very simple to make – you don’t need to boil or fry anything, just grind and mix the prepared ingredients.
Ingredients: bunch of basil, cheese (50 grams, Parmesan), olive oil (100 grams), garlic (2 cloves), pine nuts (50 grams), juice of half a lemon.
Cooking method
Let's prepare the products - peel the garlic, divide it into pieces, wash and dry the basil, chop it finely. Grate the cheese on a coarse grater. Mix the ingredients and grind in a mortar. Of course, no one can prohibit using an electric meat grinder or blender. If you decide to crush it in a mortar, add the ingredients gradually. Mix with vegetable oil. Our task is to get a homogeneous mass, but still not to overdo it. Season to taste with salt and lemon juice. You can serve Pesto with meat or fish dishes, or simply with croutons. If some of the sauce remains unused, it is better to freeze it. Store in a glass jar in the refrigerator.
This sauce is also used for pasta, pizza, lasagna, or with croutons and crackers. Sun-dried tomatoes can be cut into pieces or minced through a meat grinder. We will simply fry pieces of fresh tomatoes in a frying pan in a small amount of oil.
Ingredients: mozzarella cheese (125 grams), tomatoes (6-8 pcs.), garlic (3 cloves), parmesan (grate, 50 grams), nuts (pine nuts, fried, 30 grams), olive oil (125 grams), balsamic vinegar ( 1 spoon), salt, pepper.
Cooking method
Cut tomatoes and cheese into thin slices. Fry the tomatoes, place the cheese on plates. Wash the basil, then separate the leaves from the stems. Make puree from garlic and leaves in a mortar or mixer, grate cheese, crush nuts with olive oil. Mix everything, season with salt, pepper, add dried tomatoes, cut into small pieces. Decorate with basil leaves.
Examples of dishes with Pesto Sauce
The thick sauce makes the fish firm, tender and infused with the flavors of basil and garlic. Fish is better than dry types, lean and low-fat. Let's add more familiar parsley or celery to the sauce.
Ingredients: fish fillet (500 grams), salt, pepper, pesto sauce.
Pesto sauce: garlic (2 cloves), green basil, pine nuts, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, salt, parsley or celery.
Cooking method
Grease a baking dish with vegetable oil. You can place foil on the bottom of the pan to make it easier to clean later. Season the fillet with salt and pepper on one side. Coat the top with sauce. Place the pan in a well-heated oven and bake at 200 degrees.
A distinctive feature of Italian pasta is that it is not cooked completely, and then absorbs some more water. Therefore it never sticks together.
Ingredients: pasta (1 pack, 450 grams), Pesto sauce, a little olive oil and Parmesan cheese.
Cooking method
Boil the pasta. Drain the water, but leave a cup of broth. Mix the finished pasta with a spoon of olive oil or butter. There should be some liquid at the bottom of the pan. Olive oil does not dry out the pasta; it becomes juicier. Add sauce to pasta and sprinkle Parmesan on top. This type of cheese only melts at high temperatures, so it won't melt into hot pasta.
— Fish dishes with sauce are especially tasty. Try a fish fillet, such as salmon, wrapped in thinly sliced ham, drizzle with a little olive oil and baked in a high oven. Delicious, especially with a regular vegetable salad.
— To store the sauce, a transparent glass container is sterilized, the sauce is placed in it and stored in the refrigerator.
— Pesto is a great alternative to tomato sauce for pizza. The sauce can be served with oven-baked or grilled vegetables and herbs.
— If you couldn’t get pine nuts, crush almonds or hazelnuts in a mortar.
History of origin
A wonderful recipe for pesto sauce has come to us from time immemorial. Although the first reliable mention of this product dates back to 1865: it is believed that the sauce recipe was invented by Italian chefs back in the days of the Roman Empire. Currently, the sauce belongs to the Northern Italian culinary tradition. Translated from Italian, “pesto” means pound. This means that this sauce is prepared by grinding several types of ingredients. As a rule, this includes products such as olive oil, pine nuts, hard cheeses and, of course, the main ingredient - basil.
Pesto sauce. What do they eat with?
Italian cuisine is gaining more and more popularity among domestic chefs and housewives, but nevertheless, questions still arise about what pesto sauce means and what it is eaten with. The list of the best dishes can again be found among Italian recipes. These include excellent pastas with the addition of this sauce, grilled fish, various soups, for example, minestrone, crostini, as well as appetizers, salad dressings and the queen among Italian dishes - pizza. The range of applications of this universal sauce is so extensive that the dishes that include it can be listed for quite a long time. What makes this sauce unique, is it difficult to prepare? What's so great about pesto sauce? What do you eat it with and what dishes is it served with?
Required Products
Recipes and secrets for preparing this sauce are widespread throughout the world. The recipe is actually quite simple. To grind the ingredients you will need a blender. The classic recipe includes ingredients such as green basil, extra virgin olive oil, peeled garlic cloves, pine nuts, hard pecorino or parmesan cheese, salt and spices.
Cooking process
To prepare, remove the green basil leaves from the stem and rinse thoroughly. In some cases, blue basil leaves can be used. Then place the leaves in a blender, add pine nuts, grated cheese, olive oil, garlic, spices and blend until smooth. You can also add a little vegetable oil.
Product storage
The sauce can be stored refrigerated for up to several weeks. But this type of product also shows good properties after deep freezing, so it can be stored frozen for a long period of time.
Italian invention - pesto sauce
The uses of the sauce are quite extensive. As mentioned above, it can be used in almost any Italian dish. This sauce can act as an independent ingredient and give a dish a unique aroma and taste, or as part of a composition along with other ingredients. Moreover, when preparing homemade pasta, it can be added to the dough batch to give the finished pasta a greenish tint and basil aroma. Undoubtedly, a chef preparing Italian dishes cannot ignore pesto sauce. What this sauce is eaten with is easy to understand just by taking a quick look at the traditions of Italian cuisine. Italian cuisine is rightfully considered homemade, where a large number of easily accessible products are used. Basil, the main component of the sauce, is widely used. Hence the conclusion that housewives add this sauce to a very large number of dishes.
Pesto is a famous green Italian sauce with a bright, refreshing flavor. Pesto was invented in Genoa, in the region of Liguria, which is located in northern Italy. The sauce gets its name from the Italian word for “to grind.” And it is not without reason that it is consonant with the word “pestle”. Pesto sauce is prepared by thoroughly grinding all the ingredients in a marble mortar and pestle. This sauce is interesting because it does not require any heat treatment: the ingredients simply need to be chopped and mixed. There is a strict rule: no metal when preparing pesto, because the taste of basil deteriorates when interacting with metal. But modern housewives sometimes don’t have the time to grind basil and garlic in a mortar for an hour. So the most common way to make pesto is to use a food processor.
The first mention of pesto sauce is found in the Cookbook of Genoa, written by Giovanni Battista Ratto and published in 1863. It was there that the first written recipe for pesto was given, which included basil, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts and grated hard cheese.
Pesto sauce is so popular in Liguria that they even began to organize a world championship in preparing Genoese pesto in the traditional way, in a mortar. The basil for the championship is grown in Liguria in a special greenhouse, since real pesto, of course, is obtained only from Ligurian basil. And this is indeed so: Ligurian basil is completely devoid of mint flavor and has a particularly delicate, refined aroma.
Pesto sauce is considered not only a healthy and natural product, but also a democratic product, since the ingredients for it are available to everyone. Moreover, it is very easy to prepare. For pesto you will need:
70 g fresh basil from Genoa. Well, if basil has not yet been brought from Genoa, take regular green basil from the local market. The leaves shouldn't be too big.
30 g shelled pine nuts. Don't forget to toast them before you start making the sauce. And know that nuts are not the main thing in pesto. The sauce should not taste overtly nutty. Pine nuts only add originality to the sauce.
60 g grated hard Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.
40 g grated Pecorino or Fiore Sardo cheese.
2 cloves of garlic.
80 g extra virgin olive oil.
Wash the basil leaves in cold water and then dry them with a kitchen towel. Crush the garlic and pine nuts in a marble mortar. Add some sea salt and basil to the mortar and start grinding everything in a circular motion. Don't use a blender unless you're in a hurry; basil in a blender will oxidize quickly due to the heat. Consequently, the pesto will quickly lose its signature green color and turn brown. Once the mixture in the mortar resembles green cream, add two types of cheese to the sauce. It is unnecessary to remind you that the cheeses must be grated in advance. The mixture is again ground with a pestle, and olive oil is added at the end. If the sauce is intended for sandwiches, you can add less oil, and if you need pesto for pasta, make it thinner by adding a little more oil. Products for pesto should be at the same temperature and in no case fresh from the refrigerator. You should not make pesto in industrial quantities. But if you end up with more sauce than you can eat at once, put the sauce in a jar, add olive oil and put it in the refrigerator, covering it with a lid or film on top. For two or three days the sauce will be quite edible.
Provençal pesto is slightly different from Genoese. There are no pine nuts in it. Almonds are sometimes used instead, and mint leaves are added to the basil. Sicilian pesto includes tomatoes and almonds, but there is much less basil. In Germany, pesto is generally made from wild garlic, not basil. And very often, instead of quite expensive pine nuts, cheaper nuts are added to pesto.
