Pesto

[Stephanymtr]

Pesto

• 400g orzo or other short pasta
• 400g frozen peas
• 100g pine nuts, roasted
• 50g basil, leaves and stalks roughly chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 100ml extra virgin olive oil
• 1× 400g tin of cannellini or butter beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
• squeeze of lemon
• sea salt and black pepper

1. Bring a large saucepan of well salted water to the boil. Add the orzo and boil for 5 minutes then add the peas and boil for another 2–3 minutes, until the orzo is tender and the peas are cooked through.

2. While the pasta is cooking, toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan over a high heat for a minute or so, until golden. Stir and toss them around to prevent them burning.

3. Place 3/4 of the toasted pine nuts into a blender or processor with all the basil, garlic, olive oil, beans and nutritional yeast and blitz for a couple of minutes until blended to a thick pesto.

4. Drain the pasta and peas and reserve about 200ml of the cooking water. Return the cooked pasta and peas to the saucepan.

5. Pour the pasta water slowly into the food processor with the motor running until you have a sauce – you may not need all of the water, so add it slowly.

6. Pour the sauce over the orzo and peas and mix well. Serve immediately with a squeeze of lemon and a scattering of toasted pine nuts

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Co7HpkFDFpB/?img_index=1

[Stephanymtr]

Note: I only made the pesto sauce. I ignored the peas and pasta and used 70 ml of olive oil instead. The quantity of the jar of salt free white beans wasn't enough. I would use two of those jars next time.

[iteles]

For next time:

• Maintain the 70ml of olive oil and add a splash of oat milk
  • I see why the original called for 100ml of olive oil as this came out quite thick BUT I don't feel that the consistency needs to be made up with olive oil (although this would be creamy and luxurious). When I warmed the pesto through with the pasta, I added a splash of oat milk and after mixing it together, the consistency came up perfect and creamy.
• Increase quantity of beans
  • As you say @Stephanymtr, the original recipe calls for a 400g tin of beans but because we were using salt-free beans we used a smaller jar (290g) because that's what was available. It can definitely do with slightly more beans to up the quantity it yields but not so much that it dilutes the flavour. 400g is probably about right.
• Either lightly cook/fry til soft or reduce the quantity of garlic cloves (to 1.5 cloves)
  • Because Portuguese garlic is quite strong (as are onions for that matter) - stronger than in a lot of countries at any rate - using the original recipe quantities meant we ended up with a bit of a garlic 'bite' and after taste. This disappeared for the most part once I 'cooked' the pesto with a splash of oat milk for 2-3 mins in the frying pan before stirring in the pasta but it would be good for it to not be required