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Monday, 9 May 2011

Sicilian pesto.

Served best straight onto whole wheat spaghetti, with a little extra parmesan sprinkled on top just for the fun of it. Delizioso!



You will need:

(Serves 4)

60g Skinned almonds (or blanched almonds)
20 x Basil leaves
200g Sun dried tomatoes - drained
4 x Garlic cloves - peeled
Extra virgin olive oil - to taste
100g Parmesan - finely grated
Salt & Pepper - to season

In a shallow frying pan toast the almonds. Once golden brown set aside and leave to cool.

Into a food processor add the basil leaves, garlic and sun dried tomatoes. Blitz until combined and very finely chopped.

Add the almonds and whizz until the mixture is a smooth paste.

Add a little of the olive oil at a time until you are happy with the consistency.
You don't want your pesto to be too sloppy but at the same time it has to have movement so you're looking for somewhere in between.

Once you are happy with the thickness, give the mixture one final pulse to make sure everything is nicely combined and then transfer to a dish.

Fold the grated parmesan cheese into the mixture. This will thicken the pesto so you may wish to add a little more oil at this stage just to loosen things up again.

Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Finito!

Recipe adapted from Gino's Pasta

2 comments:

  1. I'm only familiar with the typical green pesto, but this looks great! I love sun dried tomatoes!

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  2. It's really good, Danelle! You should definitely give it a try. I do prefer red pesto to green. The sun dried tomatoes give it a much richer flavour.

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