Basil Pesto

FROM: Michael Chiarello's Casual Cooking Cookbook

Ingredients
Serves: Makes about 3/4 cup, enough for 1 pound pasta.


2 cups firmly packed fresh basil leaves
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
Sea salt, preferably Gray salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of powdered ascorbic acid (vitamin C)
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese


Directions
Prepare an ice water bath in a large bowl, and bring a large pot of water to a boil. Put the basil in a large sieve and plunge it into the boiling water. Immediately immerse all the basil and stir so that it blanches evenly. Blanch for about 15 seconds. Remove, shake off the excess water, then plunge the basil into the ice water bath and stir again so it cools as fast as possible. Drain well.
Squeeze the water out of the basil with your hands until very dry. Roughly chop the basil and put in a blender. Add the garlic, salt and pepper to taste, olive oil, pine nuts, and the vitamin C, if using. Blend for at least 30 seconds. In this way the green of the basil will thoroughly color the oil. Add the cheese and pulse to combine. The pesto will keep several days in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator.


Michael's Tips:
I use pure olive oil for pesto so the clear flavor of the herb dominates. If you want to freeze pesto, omit the nuts and cheese.

Pasta with pesto is a good lesson in why Italians so often insist on adding a spoonful of pasta cooking water to pasta sauce. Try it here and you will see how creamy the pesto becomes on the pasta.
If your pesto typically turns army green shortly after you make it, you’ll appreciate the beauty of this version. I blanch the basil briefly to set the color, and I add a pinch of powdered ascorbic acid (vitamin C), which keeps the pesto from oxidizing.