Pasta with pesto potatoes and green beans

Pasta al pesto is one of the most classic dishes of the Ligurian cuisine! There is no doubt that when, prepared with homemade pesto, the taste and the aroma are incomparable to store bought pesto! Tradition calls for using the mortar, for a faster version you can use the blender.

It is the perfect sauce to blend with trofie as well as fusilli pasta or spaghetti with some boiled potatoes and boiled green beans.

Cooking time: 0 mins

Prep time: 30 mins

Makes about 1 cup of pesto

What do you need?

• 70 grams of Genovese Basil leaves (no stems).

• 70 grams of Extra Virgin Olive.

• 50 grams of grated Parmigiano Reggiano.

• 30 grams of pecorino sardo.

• 30grams of pine nuts.

• 2 garlic cloves.

• 3 g of coarse sea salt.

How to proceed?

1. Remove the leaves of basil from the stems wash and dry on a kitchen towel. (it needs to be well dry).

2. Divide the garlic in half remove the germ from the center. Crush garlic and pinch of salt in a mortar with the pestle until garlic is mashed and you get a cream consistency.

3. Add the pine nuts and proceed in the same way.

4. When you have reduced the mixture into a paste, add the basil leaves, a handful at a time crushing and pounding down the leaves until they form a fairly fine paste. (Always start first with percussion movements and then continue with rotary movements. Take care to collect with a spoon the ingredients from the inner edges of the mortar so as to obtain a uniform pesto) .

5. When the consistency is creamy and homogeneous, add the grated Pecorino and pound in the same way to incorporate it, then also add the Parmigiano Reggiano and continue working the paste until completely incorporated.

6. When all the ingredients are reduced to a creamy consistency, pour the oil and rotate the pestle for a few more times.

7. Your pesto alla genovese is ready to be used as a condiment for pasta potatoes and green beans.

Notes:

• For a faster version, add all ingredients into the bowl of a food processor. Blend until you reach a creamy concistancy.

• The ideal pasta to season with pesto sauce are the Genovese trofie, a form of fresh pasta typical of Genoa obtained from a dough of durum wheat semolina, salt and water.

• the traditional recipe of trofie with pesto have an addition of green beans cut into pieces and potato cubes to the pasta cooking water!