Hello, italian food lovers!

Springtime is finally here and I'm esthatic: not only the weather is slowly getting warmer and warmer but the flowers are blooming and some of my favourite veggies are at their perfect ripeness peak.

That's why I decided to post my first recipe of this blog, about one of the simplest and most classic pasta sauces to be made in this time of the year: basil pesto.

The origins of this famous pasta dish are radicated in Ligurian Riviera, mostly in Genoa but incorporates some elements of Sardinian food repertoire: pecorino (sheep cheese) and its history sets back to the 1800s.
Traditionally, pesto is a raw sauce, handmade mashing the ingredients in a stone mortar so that the oil and the essence of the basil will combine and diffuse the most amazing smell and flavour.

Today I'm presenting you two variations of the repice: one is the original and the other is one that many italian families use to make the pesto creamier and possibly greener without using too much basil.
My father uses this when the basil in our backyard isn't enough to make pesto for three, for example - he only uses our own herbs.


Original Ingredients:

Basil 50 gr
Olive oil
Pine nuts 2 teaspoon
Garlic 1 clove
Parmigiano cheese 1 teaspoon
Pecorino cheese 1 teaspoon


Variation ingredients:

Green beans and/or boiled potatoes


If you own your own mortar, you start mashing the basil leaves with some oil and the garlic and then adding the rest of the ingredients, adding oil if the paste is not runny enough.

If you use a blender, instead, you can blend all the ingredients together, in this case you can add 5-6 green beans and half of a boiled potato. This will create more of a creamy texture to the sauce, if you prefer it.
Of course, I prefer to stick to tradition but a little bit of greens more are not that bad for you...


So what kind of pasta do you eat with pesto? In Genoa they will tell you fresh trofie, fresh tagliolini or gnocchi but imho any long shaped pasta (spaghetti, bavette etc...) is perfect.


So go raid your herb garden and put the pasta water to boil, you have a recipe for your next lunch.

Buon Appetito!!