low maintenance pesto + a killer vego pasta recipe (2024)
I have two treats for you this week. So gather ’round.
The first is a new way of making pesto – a minimalist kitchen friendly recipe that requires neither food processor nor mortar & pestle. Just a chopping board and a sharp knife.
Perfect for when you find yourself cooking an ‘away game’ in a not-so-well-equipped kitchen. Or if your kitchen looks quite sparse like my share house in Surry Hills when I left uni.
I have a distinct memory of making my first ever pesto in a blender. I couldn’t get the leaves to chop as the blade at the bottom of the blender just whizzed around underneath the leaves with no liquid to pull them down. So I added the oil to mix in the leaves and ended up with a lurid chlorophyll soup. Not exactly the rustic paste I was after. But with my new bruise and chop method – you won’t have to worry about repeating my mistake.
The second is my new favourite vego pasta – zucchini [courgette] ‘noodles’. I discovered it in the lovely book of fellow food blogger, Molly of Orangette fame. It’s everything a good pasta dish should be. Simple. Delicious. Healthy.
I love the idea of cutting the zucchini into long ‘noodle’ shaped ribbons to mingle with the long strands of pasta. It lightens things up so you can still get a good carb hit with enough vegetable credentials to make you feel like you’re eating well.
Inspired by Molly from Orangette in her fabulous book A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table. Scroll down for links to Amazon and Fishpond.com.au.
I’ve always been a fan of zucchini and basil together and this recipe is a brilliant example of what a lovely married couple they make.
If you’re not in the mood to make your own pesto by all mean use a bought one. Just don’t miss out.
I’ve recently gotten into using a timer to cook my pasta. Takes the guess work out and means you don’t need to stress and spend lots of time testing. Just set to the time on the packet and forget.
4 medium zucchini 2T olive oil 300g (3/4lb) long pasta such as spaghetti or bucatini 1/2C pesto parmesan cheese, to serve
Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Slice zucchini lengthwise into ribbons as thin as you can. Heat oil in a frying pan and cook zucchini stirring occasionally until soft and buttery. About 8 minutes.
Meanwhile get your pasta cooking for as long as the wise people in the pasta making company recommend. Scoop out a cupful of cooking water then drain pasta. Add pasta to the zucchini pan along with the pesto. Stir until the pasta is well coated, adding a little reserved cooking water if it looks too dry. Taste & season.
Serve hot with extra cheese passed separately.
minimalist pesto makes about 1/2 cup
This makes more than you’ll need for the pasta but trust me, you won’t have any problems using it up. Brilliant on sandwiches or dolluped in soups. Very good mates with anything tomatoey. Also lovely with avocado on toast.
If you do have a food processor or a mortar and pestle by all means use them.
1 large bunch basil, leaves picked 1 clove garlic, peeled & finely chopped 1 handful pinenuts 2 large handfuls grated parmesan extra virgin olive oil
Wash and dry your basil then place in a clean plastic bag. Pound with your fist or a meat mallet until the leaves are bruised – this help release the basil aroma and makes it easer to chop in the next step.
Place bruised basil, garlic and pinenuts on a large chopping board. Chop and keep on chopping until everything is finely chopped and starting to look like gremolata. Transfer to a mixing bowl and stir through enough olive oil to make a rough paste. Stir through cheese. Taste & season with plenty of salt and black pepper.
Enjoy immediately or drizzle with some more oil and keep in the fridge for up to a week.
If you haven’t read Molly’s blog, I highly recommend that you check it out. She is easily top of my list of favourite food bloggers. Unfortunately she’s been neglecting it a bit lately on account of opening a restaurant in Seattle with her husband.
So I’ve been making the most of her book ‘A Homemade Life’ – a delightful read with personal stories scatted with her trademark simple recipes.
So, for a standard, single serving of 75g of dried pasta, we think that 50g of pesto is about right. Naturally, everyone's tastes are different, so you'll have to adjust the quantities up or down depending on who you are cooking for. It also greatly depends on what other ingredients you are serving your pasta with.
The salty, starchy pasta water will loosen the pesto enough to make a light sauce over the pasta. Because of its salty, starchy quality, this water will make a more flavorful, thicker final pesto sauce than regular water would.
This fresh and fragrant pasta sauce is served uncooked, so choose a pasta shape that won't overwhelm it. Similar to oil-based sauces, pesto is served best with longer cuts of pasta, like the corkscrew shape of Fusilli. Pesto works best with Bucatini, Capellini, thinner Spaghettini, and Fettuccine.
Mix pesto into creamy dips, use it as a pizza sauce, spread it on sandwiches, add it to your favorite salads, toss it with roasted summer vegetables, and use it as a sauce for grilled chicken or grilled fish.
PESTO SHOULD NEVER BE “COOKED”. If you cook Pesto Sauce, you change the make up of the fresh basil and cause it to turn darker in color. It is best to warm it up and use it at room temperature. If it needs to be thinned out, you can do so by adding a little water, chicken stock, cream or white wine.
Yes, pesto can be used straight from the jar and doesn't require cooking or heating. In fact, we actively discourage applying too much heat to pesto, as this will destroy many of the fresh flavours that producers work so hard to retain.
Pesto, on the other hand, flourishes best when paired with thinner noodles, such as spaghetti and linguine, and with shapes that have plenty of twists, grooves, curls, and troughs.
The secret to making it even stickier is to mix it with a little bit of the water you cooked your pasta in. This water is bursting with starch and acts as an emulsifier and a thickener, giving you the best possible chance of serving a restaurant-quality dish.
Don't mix the pasta and pesto over heat: The basil pesto doesn't like any additional heat (other than from the warm pasta), or it can turn dark green/black and loose flavor. You should combine the pasta and pesto in a bowl or cold pot – off heat.
Most pesto recipes call for Parmesan cheese; we often use Romano which has a stronger flavor. Basil pesto recipes often call for pine nuts, but you can easily substitute walnuts.
Pesto is the perfect sauce to enjoy with a dish of trofie (the traditional Ligurian short pasta), lasagna, potato gnocchi or as a topping for a bowl of minestrone.
pesto and alfredo sauce are less nutrient dense than tomato sauce. however, it's your food, and it's just sauce, so I would do what you feel like and not worry too much about it. Is it healthy to eat pasta sauce every day? It's not really healthy to eat anything every day.
You'll want to be mindful of the sodium content. Some jars have more than 500mg per serving and the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines recommend you eat no more than 2,300mg per day. It would be hard to stay within those guidelines if you get more than 20% of your sodium from pesto.
The healthiest pasta sauces get most of their fat from olive oil (marinara) or olive oil and nuts (pesto), not cream or cheese (alfredo). And the good guys don't pile too much salt or sugar on top of your spaghetti.
Pesto will last in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. If you've stored it in the freezer, it will last for 6 months. When you're ready to use frozen pesto, thaw it overnight in the fridge or place the container of pesto in a bowl of warm water for a quicker thawing time.
For pesto sauces, use about one jar of 5.6-ounce sauce for a 16-ounce package of pasta. The amount of pesto sauce needed for pasta per person would be about . 75 ounces of sauce for each 2 ounce (about 1 cup cooked) serving of pasta.
No matter which tummy trouble you're experiencing, you should take 1 dose of Pepto Bismol every half hour to hour until you feel better, but do not take more than 8 doses in a 24-hour period.
Don't mix the pasta and pesto over heat: The basil pesto doesn't like any additional heat (other than from the warm pasta), or it can turn dark green/black and loose flavor. You should combine the pasta and pesto in a bowl or cold pot – off heat.
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