Handchopped Pesto

I finally had the chance tonight to make pesto like an Italian grandmother! I stumbled upon this recipe awhile ago while surfing 101cookbooks.com. Rather than using a food processor like most recipes, this recipe involves hand chopping all the ingredients. By doing so, the pesto has a lot more texture and depth than the ordinary pesto you might find at your local grocery store.

The ingredients are simple, but each plays an important role in building the flavor and texture of pesto, so be sure you don't miss any of them:


Basil leaves, raw pine nuts, extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

I bought all my ingredients at Whole Foods Market. While most markets will carry these ingredients, I had some trouble finding pine nuts at my local Ralphs market. Also, I thought I would be able to just buy one bunch of basil. But the Whole Foods Market I went to only carried the organic basil leaves in small packages. I ended up having to buy 4 packets at about $2.69 a pack.

Most of my time was spent hand chopping the ingredients. First, chopping the garlic, then adding a handful of basil leaves at a time, then the pine nuts, and finally the cheese. While the author of the recipe took about 30 minutes to chop all the ingredients, I finished in about 45 minutes. At the end of 45 minutes, the ingredients were so finely chopped that I was able to pack it into a sort of pesto "cake," as the recipe suggests. Then I threw it into a bowl and topped it off with some olive oil. The recipe calls for about 2 tablespoons of oil. But I hadn't packed the pesto tight enough at first, and so I ended up using about 5 tablespoons of oil.



The end result was a beautiful, lush, green pesto. I find that hand chopping the ingredients did, in fact, bring out the flavor of the basil and the rest of the ingredients. The aroma was extremely strong, but the taste was surprisingly delicate and well-balanced.

I can't wait to try this pesto on a chicken sandwich or pasta dish! Overall, I would say this was a successful first-go. Next time, I will try to chop the ingredients even finer so that the flavors are better blended together.