Hey Pesto!

Green is my favourite colour.  It's the colour of spring, grass, leaves and all things fresh and new. And I have always loved pesto ever since I discovered it. I don't remember exactly when that was, but it was after I had left home so I would be in my twenties at least... Ready made pesto is good (especially rocket pesto) but home made is a completely different thing entirely, and there is so much scope for experimentation.

Tonight I made sprouting broccoli and pea pesto to have with gnocchi (little potato dumplings).  I have made gnocchi before, basically they are just mashed potato and flour shaped into little mini-egg sized ovals and texturised with a fork so they hold the sauce better. But that's not a weeknight thing, so tonight we used ready made gnocchi. I got inspired by the photo in a foodie magazine, and my son was a willing helper, maybe because Italy is his school topic this term, so we gave it a go.  The reason why this particular pesto tasted so fresh is that the ingredients are hardly cooked.  Sprouting broccoli and frozen peas were blanched in a bowl of boiling water for a couple of minutes and then whizzed to a rough paste in the processor with a big bunch of basil, a big bunch of flat-leaf parsley, olive oil, seasoning, grated parmesan, a few anchovy fillets, the zest and juice of a lemon and a couple of cloves of garlic:

Then all we had to do was cook the gnocchi for a couple of minutes until they rose to the surface of the water, drain them, mix with the pesto, top with parmesan shavings (tip - use a potato peeler) and voila! Or whatever the Italian is for voila!!  I thought afterwards it might have been improved by pine nuts sprinkled on top, but my daughter isn't keen on nuts.  

In the past I've made pea pesto and used it to stuff chicken breast fillets or spread on top of salmon before oven baking.  I've also made the traditional basil and pine nut version; and an amazing hazelnut pesto that I drizzled on top of a caramelised carrot risotto.  You can vary the herbs, nuts and the level of garlic and lemon to suit your personal taste. It is much easier with a food processor.  Sometimes I use the mini bowl if I'm only making a small quantity.  You can also do it with a stick blender, but I've found a "goblet" style blender doesn't work very well unless you keep stopping it and shoving the herbs down with the end of a wooden spoon...

I do get the feeling there is more experimenting to do before I find pesto perfection!

Thank you for reading,

Caroline x