Pesto designates a kind of sauce made by mashing ingredients to a cream, most often used with pasta. This version is made of chicory and tomato, but the most known is pesto genovese. Do not confuse them: Italian people are very sensitive about food!
- ⏲️ Prep time: 30 min
- 🍳 Cook time: 0 min
- 🍽️ Servings: 4-6
Ingredients
Quantities may vary a lot: it depends on your taste and ingredients flavours. You will most probably need to adapt them.
- ~50 g cleaned chicory leaves. You shold pick young and tender ones, which are more juicy and less bitter.
- ~30 g fresh tomato
- ~4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- ~80 g aged and savoury cheese
- ~25 g almonds
- 2 cloves garlic
- coarse-grained salt
Directions
- Remove the most watery part of the tomato pulp. You don’t need a perfect work, but the drier, the better.
- Place garlic in a mortar and mash it to a cream with a pestel.
- Add almonds and grind them. They must be reduced to small pieces, not powdered. You won’t be able to crumble them further after this step.
- Add chicory, cleaned tomatoes and very little coarse-grained salt and mash to a cream. The main function of the salt is to help mashing: make sure it disappears. The result will be more or less liquid depending on the vegetables you use, but don’t worry about it yet.
- Grate the cheese, then add into the mortar and mash to a cream. The result should be pretty uniform and firm, except some floating fibers. If it is too liquid add some cheese.
- Add 2 tablespoons oil and mash until uniform.
- If you are not satisfied with the texture, add 1 more tablespoon oil and mash again. Repeat until you like it, but remember that the result must be a uniform cream, without visible oil in it.
- You can now use pesto, or store it in a jar in the fridge for 2-3 days. It won’t last long because it is just raw mashed vegetables and oil.
Contributor(s)
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Pestanzùl