WOODLAND PESTO

Pesto is a love affair of mine, however I've always found it lacking. The herb sauce should summon scenes of quaint Italian towns and foraging through woodland foothills, but I find the traditional raw garlic, pine nuts, and extra virgin olive oil a little too harsh. This recipe blends subtler, more complex flavours: the caramel tones of slow roasted garlic, sweet-woody depths of pistachios, and mellowness of almond oil to bring those woodland notes together into something to impress.

Prep Time: 10 Mins

Cook Time: 40 Mins

Difficulty: Easy

Serves: Pasta for 6

Ingredients

  • Parmesan (or other hard cheese e.g. manchego) - 75g

  • Pistachio kernels - 100g

  • Basil leaves - 20g (2 cups)

  • A small bulb of garlic (or half a large one)

  • Almond oil (or other nut oil) - 80 to 100ml

  • Salt & Pepper - enough to season

Special Kit

  • Food processor (or pestle and mortar)

Method

Step One - Roast the Garlic

First off is getting the garlic ready to roast, as it'll take a while gently caramelise, giving you time to get on with the rest of the pesto.

Pre-heat the oven to 180°c (350°f, Gas Mark 4). Then cut off the top of the garlic bulb and remove any loose layers of skin. Put the garlic onto a sheet of foil (big enough to wrap it in) and pour a teaspoon of the oil and a pinch of salt over it.

Wrap it in the foil and place in the oven for 40 minutes. 

 

Step Two - Roast the Pistachios

Pour the pistachio kernels into a frying pan and heat on low for a few minutes until they soften and start to brown (try one every now and again until the roasted flavours start to come through). Try not to have the heat up too high, or leave them unsupervised; they'll burn very quickly.

 

STEP Three - MAKE THE DRY MIX

Add to a food processor the parmesan (use the food processor to pulse into breadcrumbs if not already grated), the cooked pistachios, and the basil. Pulse until it starts to reach a course breadcrumb consistency. There'll be lots more mixing so best not to make it too fine at this point.

Have a taste, then add salt and pepper,  pulse again, and keep doing this until the seasoning is to your liking.

 

STEP Four - Add the Roasted Garlic

Once the garlic has finished cooking for its 40 minutes, each of the cloves should be caramelised all the way through and it should have a golden brown colour. Then add the whole of a small bulb (or half of a large one) to the dry mix in the food processor. Don't worry, the flavour is no where near as strong as raw garlic. Pulse just enough to incorporate.

 

STEP Five - Blend & Finish

Then add half the oil and pulse, and keep adding oil and pulsing, until it reaches a consistency you like. I generally find it takes around 90ml of oil, but this will vary each time. It should resemble fresh pesto at the end.

And that's it. Hope you enjoy!