We’re having a pesto marathon at my house. Tonight…and tomorrow night..and the next night. The garden basil is out of control and it’s now or never for the year’s sweetest pesto. I had made pesto for decades before discovering what a spoonful of ricotta does for it. So creamy! Fred Plotkin, the author of the bible on Ligurian cooking (Recipes from Paradise: Life and Food on the Italian Riviera), assures me that ricotta is a legitimate addition, although he would probably say I use too much. (I live on Planet Cheese, after all.) Try my way and let me know what you think.
“I’m definitely a manual pesto person,” Plotkin told me in a recent phone chat. “If you’re going to gather those expensive ingredients, take the extra effort.”
Pesto made in a mortar has livelier fragrance, argues Plotkin, who lives in Manhattan but has made many trips to Liguria. A blender heats it up too much and pesto should never, ever, ever be heated. Got that? You put the pesto in a bowl and add the hot pasta to it. In parts of Liguria, cooks add prescinsêua —a fresh cheese similar to ricotta but tangier. If you want to approximate that flavor, Plotkin suggests adding a spoonful of yogurt to the ricotta.
Plotkin has a few other tips for making pesto the purist’s way:
Don’t wash the basil leaves; clean them gently with a damp paper towel.
Cut out the central rib of large leaves.
Use a marble mortar and a wooden pestle.
I have made Plotkin’s Pesto Classico in a mortar, meticulously, and liked the results. But I have also watched many Pasta Grannies make pesto, and most of them use a blender with no apologies. On the Italia Squisita YouTube channel, you can watch a Ligurian chef make the same pesto in a mortar and in a blender and then serve them to his blindfolded father and uncle, who are identical twins. It’s comical, and I won’t spoil the outcome for you.
Homemade trofie with my blender pesto
Despite my admiration for Plotkin and his respect for tradition, I’m pretty satisfied with my blender pesto with ricotta. In fact, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Don’t let summer end without trying these other recipes that pair ricotta with summer produce.
Blueberry Ricotta Pancakes are super fluffy from beaten egg whites, perfect for lazy weekend breakfasts.
Baked Ricotta-Stuffed Zucchini is one of my favorite recipes from My Calabria, the cookbook I co-authored with Rosetta Costantino. They’re delicious at room temperature, too, so you can take them to a potluck.
Photo: Sara Remington
Grilled Eggplant Cannelloni with Ricotta and Prosciutto calls for a homemade tomato sauce but you can use a storebought sauce to save time.
You hardly need a recipe for Ricotta with Summer Fruit, Honey and Poppy Seeds but you’ll find some tips for putting it together in this post.
Ricotta Ice Cream, another gem from My Calabria, is sublime with any summer fruits from berries, apricots, peaches and nectarines to late-summer figs.