Tremendous Pesto Genovese
Prep
10m
Cook
0m
Total
10m
Bigly says
Listen to me. We need to talk about real pesto. Genovese pesto. From Genoa. The home of the greatest green sauce in the history of green sauces. And there have been many green sauces — chimichurri, salsa verde, the French have a green sauce, the Germans have something pretending to be a green sauce — and Genovese pesto walks past every single one of them and doesn't even nod. It's a slaughter.
I've eaten pesto in Genoa itself. I went. I sat in a tiny restaurant on a back alley with the laundry hanging overhead, the kind of restaurant where the menu is whatever the cook felt like making — and an old woman, eighty if she was a day, marched out of the kitchen with a bowl of trofie coated in green so vivid it looked LIT FROM WITHIN. She set it down. She did not smile. She watched me eat the first bite. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, she nodded once and walked away. That was the moment I understood: jar pesto is a FRAUD. Jar pesto is sad. Jar pesto has sat in a warm warehouse for eighteen months turning into a paste that tastes like grass clippings and regret. There's a UNIVERSE of difference between jar pesto and the real thing.
Real pesto is seven ingredients. SEVEN. Basil, pine nuts, garlic, parmesan, pecorino — yes, both cheeses, do not argue with me, the Italians figured this out hundreds of years ago and they are not going to revise the recipe for your convenience — olive oil, salt. That's it. No fillers. No spinach pretending to be basil. No cashews pretending to be pine nuts. The Genovese got it right on the first attempt and the rest of the planet has been trying to catch up ever since. That's tremendous. Tremendous.
Ingredients
- 3 cupsfresh basil leaves, packed(young leaves, the small bright ones, not the giant grocery store ones gone sad)
- 1/3 cuppine nuts(lightly toasted, just barely golden, do not burn them)
- 2 small clovesgarlic(small. SMALL. Two giant cloves will murder your pesto)
- 1/2 tspkosher salt
- 1/2 cupparmigiano reggiano, grated
- 1/4 cuppecorino romano, grated(both cheeses, no shortcuts)
- 1/2 cupextra-virgin olive oil(the good stuff, the green peppery stuff)
- 1 lbpasta of your choice (for serving)(trofie, trenette, or linguine — the curly shapes catch sauce best)
Steps
- 1
Lightly toast the pine nuts in a dry skillet over medium-low heat for 3-4 minutes, shaking the pan often, until just barely golden and fragrant. Slide them out of the pan immediately so they don't keep cooking. Let cool.
- 2
If using a food processor: pulse the garlic and salt together a few times until finely minced. Add the basil and pine nuts and pulse 8-10 times until coarsely chopped — do not run it on continuous, you want texture.
- 3
Add both cheeses and pulse twice more to combine.
- 4
With the processor off, drizzle the olive oil in and pulse 4-5 times, just until the sauce comes together but still looks rustic. Stop before it turns into a smooth paste.
- 5
Taste and adjust salt. The pesto should be vivid green, bright, and aggressive — that's correct.
- 6
To serve with pasta: bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta according to package directions until al dente. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water before draining.
- 7
Transfer the drained pasta to a large warm bowl. Add the pesto and 2-3 tablespoons of the reserved pasta water. Toss vigorously until every strand is coated and glossy. Add more pasta water as needed.
- 8
Serve immediately with extra grated parmesan on top. The pesto should never be cooked — the heat of the pasta is all the warmth it gets.
One more thing
You can freeze this pesto in ice cube trays. Pop the cubes out, drop them in a freezer bag, and you have GREEN GOLD on hand for the next six months. Tuesday night arrives — the kids are screaming, the dog is screaming, somebody you've never met is calling about a car warranty, a CAR WARRANTY, who's doing this, who's responsible for the car-warranty industry, an absolute scandal — you grab two pesto cubes, you boil pasta, you toss with a splash of pasta water, dinner is on the table in twelve minutes. You look like a hero. You ARE a hero. Save me a piece.
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