Pesto

2024-08-21
Source: https://youtu.be/2hm2i21knoA
Effort: low-medium

Ingredients:

• Nuts (pine, walnut, most nuts work here actually)
• Hard cheese (prefer parmegiano reggiano, but most hard cheeses will work here)
• Basil (fresher = better, can't use any processed form, defeats the point of DIY pesto)
• Garlic (fresher = better)
• Olive Oil (quality matters, i think you can get away with other oils here)
• Salt
• Pepper

NOTE: I made a bit of a mistake upon initial posting. This is not a vegan recipe, however.. the only non-vegan ingredient here is the hard cheese, which.. i believe should be substitutable with nutritional yeast and extra salt. The point of the cheese is to be a sort of kinda powdery binder that also adds in salt. I am unable to try this since as of time of writing this note, it is the exact opposite of basil season (as of time of writing), so I cannot test this.

UPDATE 2024-12-31: uh i think this idea was implanted into me by grimgrains way back when I read it when it initially came out, I never noticed the similarity until now, the link above points to a pesto recipe that does indeed use nutritional yeast as a cheese substitute, but opts to omit the nuts.

Prep:

There are two ways of making this:

• Use a food processor, throw everything in, blend, season w/ salt and pepper until you like it, done
• Use a mortar and pestle (prefer wooden pestle, stone mortar), throw everything in, beat up, adjust flavor until you like it, done

Storage:

Pesto is spoiled via oxidation, methods of storing pesto mostly involve reducing it's exposure to oxygen.

Advise storing within glass jars. When filling a jar, be sure to avoid introducing air bubbles. Upon filling a jar, pour a layer of olive oil on top to add a protective layer.

Store-bought pesto jars work best for storing homemade pesto. Who would've thought.

Can be:

• Consumed immediately (tastes best at this state)
• Stored in a fridge at 5C for around 5 days
• Stored in a freezer for up to a year, though ymmv, thaws with little to no degradation in flavor.