Lemon Basil Pesto

July 3, 5:33 PMNewark Food ExaminerDave Hershorin

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Lemon basil pesto with spinach served over traditional spaghetti

A lighter version of this classic savory elixir

Here is another summer recipe, a simple lemon basil pesto that takes about 15 minutes to make. Enhance everything from basic pasta presentations to more adventurous applications; you can stuff some in your favorite meat loin prior to smoking and/or atop freshly shucked oysters briefly placed on a hot barbeque. Lemon basil pesto just makes everything you add it to better.

The best part about making lemon basil pesto is how nicely this variety of basil adds such a citrus quality to what has become a too often static recipe. The key is in using the lemon basil tops – as many as possible to compose the lemon basil you use in the recipe below – since their floral qualities will give even more aromatic dimensions to your dishes.

Lemon basil (with many tasty tops) still in the garden

Ingredients:

* 2 cups chopped lemon basil (all tops if possible)
* 6-8 cloves roasted garlic
* 1/3 – ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
* ½ tsp fresh ground black pepper
* ¾ tsp sea salt
* 1/3 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
* ¼ cup toasted pine nuts or walnuts
* Additional olive oil for storage

Roasting garlic:

You can use the shortcut of quick-cooking coarsely chopped garlic immersed in olive oil in the microwave for 10 second burst (anywhere from 6 to 10 of them, depending upon the size of the cloves). Click here for a past discussion on this topic. Or, if you have the time, you can go ‘old school’ and wrap your garlic cloves (still in their ‘paper’) in foil with some olive oil and put that into a 325ºF (toaster) oven for anywhere from one to two hours. Check them after an hour to gauge how you’re doing; you’ll know they’re done when they are soft and ooze a little garlic out when lightly squeezed.

Toasting pine nuts or walnuts:

This step is simple. Heat a broad pan (at least 12”) over a medium burner. Add a touch of olive oil and your chosen nuts. Shake, shimmy and move them all around; you can use a spatula or spoon to help agitate the nuts. Don’t let them sit for more than 10 or 15 seconds without stirring. Once you see browning start, turn the fire off and be ready to take them out. Pine nuts can burn especially quickly, so don’t get greedy. That browned flavor will travel, so you won’t have to push your luck. Take them out and allow a few minutes to cool on a plate or flat surface.

Lemon basil pesto just finished, still in the food processor

Making the pesto:

In a food processor, place the basil, roasted garlic, toasted nuts, sea salt and pepper. Turn on high for at least a few seconds before slowly drizzling in all of the olive oil as the mixture blends. This will take a minute or more. Allow everything to blend at least 20 seconds once all of the olive oil has been added.

You can add your chosen cheese while the food processor is still running, at the very end of the blending process, for about 5 seconds. Or you can fold the cheese in by hand after the pesto has been extracted. The third way is to add/mix the cheese in when you go to use the pesto in whatever you do with it. You can get pretty creative with this third option, especially within pasta applications, as to when is best to infuse your fromage.

Extract your beautiful creation with a spatula to get every tiny flavor-packed bit. Store in a container that gives you room to add enough olive oil so that, when poured in carefully, it covers the pesto evenly with about half-an-inch (½”) of pure extra oil. Take the added step of carefully placing a small piece of saran upon the oil topping to keep any oxidation from occurring.

Refrigerate indefinitely, as long as each time you use some pesto, you reapply more protective olive oil and saran the same way. Pesto also freezes nicely. But if you foresee freezing as your storage method, do not add any cheese since it doesn’t freeze well in pesto.

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Pesto is a highly adaptable concoction. You can find some pretty original approaches if you do some (online) research, so whatever herb you find yourself with an abundance of this growing season, be sure that there’s a pesto recipe out there just for you. Or use the basic principles of pesto – garlic, (hard) cheese, nuts and your chosen herb – and dial up something no one’s ever done. There’s a lot of range with pesto, so get out there and tempt us with your unique ideas.