Pesto - How to Make "Real" Fresh Basil Pesto

[Music] hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with pesto that's right it's recently come to my attention that we've never posted a video for a proper pesto but we've done a few tragically hip versions using things like arugula and walnuts and almonds and parsley but we've never actually posted a real fresh basil pesto and not only are we doing a real pesto in regards to the ingredients but what really makes this a real pesto is the technique and in particular using one of these instead of a blender or food processor okay if you're only gonna remember one thing from this video it should be that the only way to make a real pesto is using a mortar and pestle and ideally it's one of these relatively inexpensive marble versions which I think have just the right amount of texture for this process and I'll give more info about this must-have tool on the blog post but for now let's go ahead get started by reviewing our ingredients starting with the star of the show our basil and as far as a buying tip try to find a bunch that's flowering or is about to flower since my Ligurian friends tell me that's going to make for the most fragrant and best-tasting pesto and then besides the basil we're also going to need some peeled garlic cloves and I'll generally use between 4 and 6 cloves depending on my mood we're also going to need 2 ounces of real Parmesan cheese and the reason I'm giving you weight here is because as you'll see in a second couple measurements for grated cheese don't work very well but anyway we'll get to that in a second we are also going to need some pine nuts which in my opinion should be raw and not toasted and then other than a little bit of salty on the other thing we're gonna need is some beautiful extra-virgin olive oil preferably from Liguria but any mild flavored extra-virgin olive oil will work and besides picking all the basil leaves off our bunches the one thing we're gonna want to do before we get started here is grate our cheese which I normally don't show but today I have a reason and that's to demonstrate that two ounces of grated cheese is not a half cup which is what it's most commonly listed as on your online conversion charts know if you take 2 ounces of parmigiano-reggiano and grade it on a microplane you're gonna end up with something closer to a cup and a half of grated cheese so bottom line we're gonna weigh out exactly 2 ounces and then once that set and our Basil's picked we can begin by crushing our garlic in our mortar with the help of a large pinch of coarse kosher salt or sea salt really doesn't matter it's the coarseness that's the important part since that's gonna help us grind these garlic lows down to a paste and as you may know by crushing garlic like this instead of chopping it even if you use a blender or food processor the flavor of garlic pulverized like this is so much more intense and sharp and peppery that it really is an entirely different product and one of the real keys to this recipe so we'll crush our garlic as shown at which point we can start adding our basil but unlike what most recipes tell you to do we're not adding ours a few leaves at a time that's crazy I much prefer to add it in three or four larger additions so basically the bottom line here is put in as much basil as you can fit in and we'll pound that until it starts to break down at which point we'll add another handful and simply continue on until it's all incorporated and while it might be a little unruly when you start and you may have to retrieve a few leaves that attempt to escape I do prefer this method because I think the more you have in the mortar the easier it is to crush and while technically we're just using the leaves here as I'm smashing this you might see a little piece of flour here or a little piece of stem there that's fine nothing to be concerned about those little pieces stem are more fibrous but the flavors basically the same as the leaf and as far as the flowers go a little bit of bud doesn't hurt but anyway one way or another we're gonna add and crush our basil to continue working it over until we have a fairly fine paste and right here you can get a look at exactly how far I like to go so we will crush our basil as fine as we see fit at which point we can add in pounding our pine nuts which as I mentioned before are raw and not toasted and then what we'll do once our pine nuts have been mashed in is move on to our grated cheese it's similar to our basil I like to add this in about three additions so we'll transfer a handful in and work that over with our pestle yes the T is silent and as you know generally I tell you use whatever cheese you want but not here I highly suggest you go with the parmigiano-reggiano and not the pecorino that's call for in a lot of recipes because while it is true pecorino is used in authentic versions back in the old country the variety of pecorino they're using is not the same as the one you buy here which I find is a little too sharp and salty for my tastes so I think a parmesan Ruggiano is the way to go but having said that do you want you are after all the boss and making sure your pesto is the best oh and better than the rest oh and by the way it's during this cheese edition that our pesto actually starts to look like pesto I mean how is something that looks like that not going to be incredible to eat but anyway we'll go ahead and mash and model in two ounces of parmesan which brings us to our last ingredients about a half a cup of extra virgin olive oil which will mix in about a tablespoon at a time and I mentioned earlier to use algorri and olive oil if you could find it and that's because it tends to be on the mild side okay with the peppery intensity of that garlic we don't necessarily want a really intense sharp peppery olive oil which can sort of fight the garlic so if you're now using Ligurian try to find something nice and mild on the buttery side and not towards the bitter peppery end of the spectrum and as soon as we've successfully emulsified in that oil our pesto is done and looking beyond gorgeous speaking of which above and beyond the taste you can really only achieve this amazing appearance if you use the mortar and pestle and if we want we could serve it right out of the mortar which does look very cool but I actually transferred mine to this bowl so that I could show you I like to drizzle a little bit extra olive oil over the top - I think protect it from oxidizing although to be honest I'm not sure it's necessary okay this could be another classic example of me doing something that just seems like a good idea but anyway that's what I do and then speaking of good ideas let me move this bowl next to some even better light as well as next to some sliced bread so I can taste it and as luck would have it the Sun was just coming out from behind a cloud so we get to see this amazing amalgamation an even better light and since this is a raw uncooked sauce for me that's how it's best enjoyed and if you've only had pesto from the store or one made using a food processor or blender you are not going to believe how much better this is this stuff's so much more fragrant and the flavors are so pure in so intense to compare the two products is almost ridiculous and yes since I dripped on that other slice I'll have to eat that too but anyway in this chefs opinion this stuff's best enjoyed raw but if you do want to enjoy with pasta which is not a bad idea do not heat it in the pan okay add some to the bottom of a warm pasta bowl along with a little bit of extra olive oil and then we'll transfer our cook pasta on top of that along with a little bit of that starchy pasta water and maybe a little extra pesto on top and we will toss that right in the bowl okay if we added that pesto to the pan and cooked it into the pasta like we do with other sauces it would completely lose that freshness and vibrancy which is not to say it's gonna be bad it's just not going to be otherworldly like the raw stuff so once made if you want to use it for a pizza or for pasta like this not a problem but at least promise me you're gonna try it raw before you do that okay which reminds me fair warning about three out of ten people will not consider this an upgrade from what they get at the market this stuff will actually be too intense for some people okay when it comes to pesto sauces this stuff is the truth and as we all know not everybody could handle the truth but for the seven out of ten people that can handle this they're gonna love it as much as I do so I hope sometime soon you find some basil and pull out your mortar and pestle or if you don't have one this is the perfect excuse to order one and give this amazing fresh basil pesto a try soon so head over to food wishes comm for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music]

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 2,206,015

Keywords: Pesto, Basil, Real, Fresh, sauce, mortar, chef, john, foodwishes, italian, ligurian

Id: 6-dOZezSwwM

Length: 8min 3sec (483 seconds)

Published: Tue May 02 2017