Basil pesto alla Genovese | knife or mortar & pestle method - YouTube

Your basic basil pesto, pesto alla Genovese, the paste from Genoa. One of the quickest

and most delicious pasta sauces. I really think it comes out better the traditional

way, with a mortar and pestle, but you can make it with just a knife. I'm gonna show

you both ways, plus a handy trick for keeping it green.

I like one raw garlic clove per person. That's my base unit. 1 part, by weight. Then I like

about 2 parts nuts. Pine nuts are traditional but any kind of nut will work. 2 parts cheese

— pecorino, but parmesan would be fine. Then, by weight, I want about 5 parts fresh

basil leaves, picked off their stems. That's just one portion, believe it or not. It's

a basil-based sauce. And then you'll need a little bit of salt, and just enough olive

oil to turn it into a sauce. That's the traditional ingredients, though the proportions vary a

lot. These are just what I've found I like.

First thing I'll do though is drop my pasta into salted boiling water. The second you

start to cut up the basil it's going to start turning brown, so I want to make the pesto

right before I eat it. The 10 minutes this spaghetti is gonna take is plenty of time.

Next thing is peel the garlic and start chopping it up. Once I've got that going, I'll start

bringing in the pine nuts, just chopping everything as fine as I can get it. Once I've done about

all I can do, I'll start bringing in the basil. It's easier to chop if you bunch it up tight.

Mow through that and then just hack indiscriminately. Chop it as fine as possible. You could do

this in the food processor — that gets you results almost identical to the knife. I think

I'd only do that if I was making a really big batch.

On goes my pile of grated pecorino. Might as well chop those filaments up a little bit.

Sprinkle over a little pinch of coarse salt, and then here's something the food processor

can't do — grind everything against the board. Just push the side of the knife into

those salt grains, which will act as an abrasive and help smooth this out.

The grinding helps smooth the nuts into a paste and it squeezes green juice out of the

basil. This gets you a more uniform green color on the pasta, instead of just having

specs of green. In a little bowl, and I'll just mix in enough olive oil to get a saucy

consistency.

Like I said, this is one portion — maybe two, depending on size and how heavily dressed

you like your pasta, which is done — I'll drain it, but not all the way. A little bit

of pasta water in there is nice for the sauce texture.

Just stir that in, as much as you want. The raw garlic cooks a little in the heat of the

pasta, so I don't think a whole clove is overpowering. Alright, pretty nice. The flavor is all there,

but the texture and color isn't quite as good as you get from the traditional mortar and

pestle.

The ceramic ones are really only good for spices, I think. I'd recommend granite, like

this — Italian or Thai style, with a rough interior. If the inside is smooth and shiny,

it can't grind pesto.

Another option would be a molcajete — a Mexican-style mortar and pestle. I really

prefer the wider dimensions and they're very abrasive. The igneous rock they're carved

from is super porous, so you have to season these before you use them, but the more you

use them the better they get.

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Now — drop your pasta before you do anything. Yes I've decided to not break my pasta today.

I'm branching out. Peel that garlic clove and into the molcajete with a pinch of coarse

salt to help grind it, and it's not traditional but I think a tiny pinch of sugar really wakes

pesto up. Just grind until it's virtually liquified.

A handful of pine nuts. Should you toast them first? I've tried it both ways and I couldn't

taste any difference in the final product, so I say don't bother. Now look, see how the

mortar and pestle is turning this into a nut butter, like peanut butter?

That's gonna make the pesto much creamier on the pasta. This grinding effect cannot

be achieved with a blade. Maybe if you filled your food processor all the way up with pine

nuts, but who needs that much?

You can grind down whole basil leaves, but I honestly find it easier to chop them first,

just a little. This gives you a nice head start, and it severs any long fibers that

you can't break down through grinding. I'll just get that started, though I'm not quite

done with the basil yet.

A big handful of grated pecorino in there. And at this point, the earliest written recipe

from Genoa calls for a little butter to be mixed with the olive oil. I tried that — didn't

taste much different to me.

What I have found makes a big difference is switching to a wooden spoon after I put in

the oil. In Italy they've often do this whole process with a wooden pestle. Grinding with

wood just seems to do a better job of getting that fine basil mince down into a true paste.

This really squeezes that green juice out that will color the whole strand of pasta.

See how much creamier that looks compared to our first batch? Drain the pasta, retaining

just a little starchy water in there for the sauce, stir that in and look how much more

homogenous the color is. That's green pasta, not just pasta covered in specs of green,

and when you taste it, the texture is much creamier — I think that's the pine nut butter

that we were able to achieve in the mortar and pestle.

Much tastier. But now look. Look what happens if I let this sit for about 10 minutes — it's

gonna turn brown. This is an enzymatic reaction in the basil that happens in the presence

of oxygen. As soon as you cut the basil, the browning starts to happen.

If you seal up your pesto that helps a little, but here's what really works. Before you drop

the pasta in your salted boil water, drop in the basil, just for a few seconds. Literally

10 seconds will denature the phenolase enzyme in there. Just fish out those leaves with

a slotted spoon or something and dump them right into ice water, to stop the cooking.

Now we have blanched basil, and that browning oxidation cannot happen.

I say throw the pasta right in the same water. It's fine. Gather up the basil and squeeze

it as dry as you can get it. Onto the board. This time I'll use the granite mortar and

pestle just so you can see that. I like is one, I just wish it was wider. The Thai-style

ones are really nice.

Pinch of salt and sugar on my garlic clove, grind that to a paste. In goes my pine nuts,

but I've made pesto with almonds, pistachios, they're all good. Pine nuts are expensive.

Use whatever you've got. The granite is not as coarse as the volcanic rock so this takes

a little longer, but granite doesn't have to be seasoned.

Now, you gotta chop this basil very fine before you put it in. When it's blanched it's slippery

and the stone can't grip onto it very well. You're not gonna get it much finer by grinding.

You can just grind in a solid chunk of cheese, though it's easier to grate it.

Enough olive oil to make it a sauce, and then I'll switch to the wooden spoon. I find the

stone pestle does a better job of starting pesto, the wood does a better job of finishing

it. Still not as smooth of a puree as we had before, because that blanched basil is just

too slick, but the color is totally stable. It won't brown.

Grab my mostly drained pasta, stir that in, and at this stage you might find you need

more oil or water to loosen it up and that's easy to do. There we go. I think it tastes

a hair not as good as the version with raw basil, but it's not a huge difference. And

if I was making pesto for like a dinner party or something, the blanched version would relieve

a lot of time pressure. It's gonna stay green all night.

Have it with a cold white wine and that's one of the finest quick dinners on earth.