November 02, 2011

Pesto Broccoli

I made this as an entre for my ravioli meal


Pesto is really easy to make. All you need are the right ingredients to blend up. We usually have a bottle of homemade pesto in the fridge. We used to follow the recipe from the book, 'Best-Ever Pasta' (Linda Fraser), but now I think my Mum just improvises.


The recipe + modifications:
3/4 cup of fresh basil leaves (not hard to find, but make sure it's not Thai basil- that has a lemon-ey flavour), 4 cloves of peeled garlic, 4 tbsps pine nuts- these are not easily available, but we use cashew-nuts. Tastes pretty good, so add about a handful and a half, 5 tbsps of olive oil, salt and pepper, 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan (the only cheese that can be a substitute is Pecorino.) 
Blend all this up till the consistency that you're happy with. I prefer slightly gritty.




Parboil/steam chopped broccoli. What I did was put the broccoli into a bowl of water and microwave for about 5 minutes. In a pan with about 2 tbsp of oil, add onions (1/2 finely chopped) and garlic (2 cloves, grated) (essentials in everything I cook!). Then add about 4 or 5 tbsps of pesto and the broccoli. Cook till broccoli is tender. I like a bite on the veggies. Shouldn't be too soft. 





2 comments:

Geetanjali said...

I'll be trying this. It looks absolutely delicious!

Tanisha Christo said...

Let me know how it turns out. :)