This was the ingredient list and the listed method -
Ingredients
2 cups of packed arugula leaves
1/2 cup of walnuts
1/2 cup fresh Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
6 garlic cloves, unpeeled
1/2 garlic clove peeled and minced
Method
1 Brown 6 garlic cloves with their peels on in a skillet over medium high heat until the garlic is lightly browned in places, about 10 minutes. Remove the garlic from the pan, cool, and remove the skins.
2 Toast the nuts in a pan over medium heat until lightly brown, or heat in a microwave on high heat for a minute or two until you get that roasted flavor. In our microwave it takes 2 minutes.
3a Food processor method (the fast way): Combine the arugula, walnuts, roasted and raw garlic into a food processor. Pulse while drizzling the olive oil into the processor. Remove the mixture from the processor and put it into a bowl. Stir in the Parmesan cheese.
3b Mortar and pestle method (photo pictures pesto produced this way): Combine the nuts and garlic in a mortar. With the pestle, grind until smooth. Add the cheese and olive oil, grind again until smooth. Finely chop the arugula and add it to the mortar. Grind up with the other ingredients until smooth.
Because the pesto is so dependent on the individual ingredients, and the strength of the ingredients depends on the season or variety, test it and add more of the ingredients to taste.
4 Mix with freshly prepared pasta of your choice. You may need to add a little bit of water or more olive oil to mix the pesto more evenly with the pasta.
Makes enough pesto sauce for an ample serving of pasta for four people
I have to admit I am not one for staying in the lines, nor for following recipes by rout. One may argue that I am asking for trouble as someone went through the process and got good results already, why try changing it up? But for me, cooking is about improvising. There are times where I am prepped and ready with everything for one particular recipe, but most of the times, I'm not. So I walk to the pantry and see what I do have and how it might work in the recipe in place of something I don't have.
For this recipe I had to substitute almonds for the walnuts, which I wouldn't suggest. Almonds are a bit too mild to fully compliment and add to this blend of flavors the way walnuts or pine nuts would. Sticking to pine or walnuts would be best. Also, I did a combination of the food processor method with my own blender method. My food processor is smaller, so I couldn't make the entire batch in one go. In a blender it's possible, but it is slooooow going. My blender is not exactly new, but I think all blenders would have trouble grinding that many arugula leaves at once.
Overall, this was a dee-lish dish and I give it 4 cups out of 5 cups.
Thank you again to RA and friends for giving everyone a reason to cook and write this summer.
We make basil pesto all the time, but I've heard that arugula is "peppery." Did you think that a taste like that came out in the pesto?
ReplyDeleteI love making a good pesto. Sometimes, when I'm feeling saucy, I like to add in some chopped sun-dried tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteI think I will try this! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI think I'll try this.
ReplyDeleteI like almonds in pesto too. There are some AMAZING recipes for Almond Mint Pesto and they are super yummy.
RA - yes! there was definitely the peppery taste of the arugula in there. and depending on how peppery you like it, you can tone it down by adding more of the other ingredients or tone it up with more arugula and normal amounts of the others.
ReplyDeleteNoelle - YES! What an awesome idea. Do you add them directly into the recipe?
S n' L - prep time was about a half hour total. Cooking time for the noodles - 15 min. Sauteeing the veggies - 7 minutes. The last two are done together, so it was not long before we were munching on yumminess
Nic - wow, mint almond pesto sounds dee-lish. i must be living in a bubble because I didn't know there were other pestos besides basil until i discovered arugula. you just rocked my world with the mint!