John Myers
Ingredients for 6 servings:
- 100 basil leaves, as fresh as possible
- 3 tbsp pine nuts
- 2 garlic cloves
- 30 g butter, cold
- 75 g olive oil, best quality
- 75 g Parmesan or Peccorino, to taste or mixed, grated
- salt and pepper
- 250 g beans, green, fresh
- 250 g potatoes, peeled
- 450 g pasta (trenette) or linguine
- Salt
Instructions
Working time approx. 20 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 10 minutes; Total time approx. 30 minutes
Trenette al Pesto, Ligurian specialty
Pesto: Crush the pine nuts and garlic in a mortar. Add the basil and butter, and blend everything in a blender. Fold in the cheese and drizzle with the oil, then season with salt and pepper and mix well. Make everything very quickly, making sure the basil isn’t flowering yet, as this would mean it’s too old, and that it doesn’t get warm while blending, as this would cause it to turn dark. Cut the potatoes into thin slices so that they cook the same amount of time as the beans and pasta. This requires some experience. Boil all three ingredients in a large pot of salted water until tender. Just before draining, add a few tablespoons of the cooking water to the pesto, pour it into a large bowl, and mix the trenette with the potatoes and beans. Serve immediately on plates and grate some Pecorino or Parmesan cheese over the pesto, if desired. The quality of the ingredients is paramount. As usual, it’s served as a primo piatto, not as a main course, and is a wonderful summer dish. There are over 50 different basil plants in the Mediterranean region. If you can find the ones growing in Liguria, you should grab them, or even make a typical pesto while on vacation there. Trenette is the typical pasta used for pesto, also called linguine in other regions. They are similar to spaghetti, but not round, but oval, and thus slightly wider.
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