Basil Pesto
Basil Pesto is a basil leaves based pesto or as we say in India a basil leave chutney. It is made with fresh basil leaves with Parmesan cheese, pine nuts and extra virgin olive oil. A fresh and amazing compliment with your favorite pastas, breads and salads. It also goes very well as a marinade for grilled fish and chicken.
Serving Size 3 tbsp
Ingredients
- 2 cups fresh basil leaves
- 2 tbsp olive oil extra virgin preferable
- 3 large garlic cloves approx. 2 tsp
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
- 1/2 cup pine nuts if not available you can either use walnuts or cashew nuts
- salt to taste
- 2 tbsp parmesan cheese
Instructions
There are 2 ways to prepare pesto:
Food processor/ grinder
- Put together except the basil leaves all the ingredients into food processor and grind
- Then add the basil leaves and again grind together for a few seconds (the basil leaves get rancid if ground too much)
Mortar-Pestle(This gives the best result)
- Fine grind the nuts, garlic with the olive oil. Then add the pepper powder, Parmesan and basil leaves.
- Make into a smooth paste and use with your favorite pastas and bread.