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.
Read moreTomato Pesto for the Dog Days
n Napa Valley, where I live, it is too hot to cook much this week. Triple-digit days almost (almost) take my appetite away. Riffling through my mental inventory of pasta sauces that don’t require cooking, I remembered a wonderful one that my husband and I enjoyed years ago in Lipari, one of the Aeolian islands. I have made this pesto—a blend of tomato, almonds, capers, basil and mint—many times since.
Pecorino romano is the cheese you want here. I don’t think Parmigiano-Reggiano would taste right at all. Save any leftover pesto to spread on bruschetta.
Read morePesto of Your Dreams
I’ve been working on my pesto recipe for a few decades but I’ve never been 100 percent satisfied. Sometimes I make it in a mortar, like you’re supposed to, but it seems to discolor more with that method. Sometimes I blanch the basil leaves for a few seconds to keep the color, a trick I learned from Michael Chiarello, who also adds a pinch of ascorbic acid for the same reason. But that always seems a bit like cheating. Recently, perusing a new Italian cookbook, I saw another approach that intrigued me.
Read more