Green Garlic Pesto Recipes

GREEN GARLIC PESTO

Steps:

• Gather the ingredients.
• Trim and discard the root ends of the green garlic.
• Finely chop the green garlic, rinse it thoroughly under cool running water in a colander, and pat or spin it dry (I find chopping and then cleaning gets all the dirt out of the picture; if it's been a rainy spring, the dirt has a way of getting splattered in between the layers of the green garlic leaves).
• In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, cook the vegetable oil, green garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt until the green garlic is soft, about 3 minutes. Let it cool to warm room temperature.
• In a blender or food processor, pulse the pine nuts to chop. Set them aside in a bowl.
• Put the cooked green garlic in and pulse it, scraping down the sides as necessary, until it is bright green and smooth.
• With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil.
• Pulse in the reserved nuts and cheese. Taste the mixture and add more salt, if you like.
• Use with your favorite type of pasta and enjoy.

BRIGHT GREEN PESTO AND ITS MANY USES

Steps:

• Bring a medium-size saucepan full of water to a boil while you rinse basil leaves. Fill a bowl with ice water and place it next to the saucepan with a skimmer close by (a Chinese skimmer is good for this). When water comes to a boil, salt generously and add basil leaves. Push them down into the water with the back of a skimmer to submerge, count to five, then remove immediately with skimmer and transfer to ice water. Drain and squeeze out excess water.
• Place pine nuts or walnuts in a food processor and process until finely ground. Add blanched basil and kosher salt to taste (I use 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon) and process until finely chopped. With machine running, slowly add olive oil and continue to process for a full minute, or until the mix is reduced to a fine purée. Transfer to a bowl. You should have about 1/2 cup of purée .
• When you are ready to use the pesto, purée garlic in a mortar and pestle, or put through a garlic press, and stir into the pesto (or if using a mortar and pestle, add the puréed basil to the mashed garlic in mortar and work garlic and pesto together with pestle). Add Parmesan and stir in. The pesto will condense when you add the cheese, so even though you've added a half-cup of cheese to the purée, you will end up with about 2/3 cup of pesto. Follow the instructions in recipes for thinning out with water.

WILD GARLIC PESTO

Steps:

• Rinse and roughly chop the wild garlic leaves.
• Blitz the wild garlic leaves, parmesan, garlic, lemon zest and pine nuts to a rough paste in a food processor. Season, and with the motor running slowly, add almost all the oil. Taste, season and add a few squeezes of lemon juice.
• Transfer the pesto to a clean jar and top with the remaining oil. Will keep in the fridge for two weeks.

SIMPLE GARLIC AND BASIL PESTO

Steps:

• Place the basil in a blender. Pour in about 1 tablespoon of the oil, and blend basil into a paste. Gradually add pine nuts, Brazil nuts, Parmesan cheese, garlic, chili powder, and remaining oil. Continue to blend until smooth.