Genoese pesto, traditional Italian pasta sauce

The pesto sauce is my favorite for pasta, it is simple and very easy to prepare, but it has a unique touch and, the best thing, is that it comes out of the classic tomato or cream-based pasta sauces. With this sauce we can surprise our guests with a simple pasta dish, which is a great advantage because in just 15 minutes we can have a surprising dinner.

El pesto It is originally from Liguria (Italy), and its main ingredients are basil, olive oil, pine nuts and some types of cheese. There are other variations such as pesto Rosso and pistuAt the end of the recipe I will tell you more about these two variants.

Ingredients

• 50 gr of fresh basil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 15 gr of pine nuts
• 70 gr of parmesan
• 30 gr of pecorino (sheep's cheese)
• 100 ml of aceite oliva
• Sal Island

Crafting

The first thing we are going to do is clean the basil leaves with a clean, dry kitchen towel. The basil leaves should not be soaked, as that way their flavor would become bitter. In a mortar we are going to crush the year old teeth, the pine nuts and the salt. When it is ready we add the basil that we cleaned before and we will mix the ingredients turning in a circle with the mortar. We add the two types of cheese little by little and continue mixing in circles, finally, we also add the olive oil and finish mixing.

The ideal is to mix just enough and necessary, because if we spend too much time preparing the pesto, the basil will oxidize and its flavor will change. This way of preparing it is the traditional one, which, as you can see, requires a little more time and patience. If we want to do it in an express version we can pass all the ingredients through a mincer or a mixer, the result will not be exactly the same, but it will also be fine.

When we have the sauce ready we will only have to boil the pasta following the manufacturer's instructions, then drain it and mix with our salsa pesto. Bon Appetite!.

Variants

• Pesto rosso: It is traditional from Sicily and is made with olive oil, basil, tomato, pepper, pecorino cheese and salt. In the south of Sicily they also usually add almonds or garlic.
• Pistú: Traditional from Provence, its only difference with Genovés pesto is that it does not contain pine nuts or cheese, so it is a much cheaper version.

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