Making “pesto alla genovese” my way

I’ll start this blog with a sinful confession: I just found out how to preserve fresh cut basil. Which makes me cry even harder over the big quantity of fresh basil I tossed during the past years. Here’s the secret: treat it like fresh flowers (which means cut the bottom and immerse it in water) and don’t put it in the fridge. Exactly like this:

This bunch of basil was sitting on my counter for almost a week and it still looked fresh.

This is how I made my pesto today: first, I washed the basil.

Then I selected my ingredients: Extra Virgin olive oil and Parmigiano Reggiano Stravecchio (both available at Costco).

I cut the Parmesan cheese into chunks and used my Vitamix (from Costco as well) to grate it:

I took the cheese out of the Vitamix and I poured in half a cup of extra virgin olive oil (it’s better if the oil is poured in first).

Then I added the fresh basil and I blended it to the olive oil.

Finally, I added about three full spoons of freshly grated Parmesan cheese and I blended everything together for a few seconds.

And here it is, ready to be refrigerated or eaten:

Eventually I decided to eat it with some fresh and crunchy bread (dipping style). However, if you decide to refrigerate it, add a very thin veil of extra virgin olive oil on top.

Here’s the list of ingredients I used:

• Three cups of fresh basil leaves;
• Half a cup of extra virgin olive oil;
• Three full tbsp of Parmesan cheese.

The original Pesto alla Genovese requires also one clove of garlic, some Pecorino cheese, a pinch of sea salt and two tbsp of pine nuts. But since Paolo doesn’t like garlic, I didn’t have the Pecorino cheese and the pine seeds handy, and I also didn’t like the idea of adding salt (since the cheese is already enough salty) I made it using only three ingredients. And it was delicious.