🌿 Pesto alla genovese

Pesto alla genovese is a raw green sauce from Genoa and Liguria, made by pounding fresh basil with garlic, pine nuts and coarse salt and binding it with aged cheese and extra virgin olive oil. The name comes from the verb pestare, to pound: the sauce is traditionally made in a marble mortar with a wooden pestle.

Its ancestors are often traced to older garlic and herb sauces, but the first printed recipe appeared in 1865 in the cookbook La cuciniera genovese. Since 2007 Genoa has held a world championship of pesto made in the mortar every two years.

The classic ingredients are Basilico Genovese, a basil with small, tender leaves protected as a PDO; extra virgin olive oil, ideally the delicate Riviera Ligure PDO; grated parmesan, pecorino or a mix of both; pine nuts; garlic; and coarse salt. Pesto itself is not a protected name, so recipes and ready-made jars vary: some use other vegetable oils, other nuts or a different cheese, so it is worth reading the ingredient list.

By hand, the garlic and salt are crushed first, then the basil leaves are added and turned against the walls of the mortar until they release a bright green liquid; pine nuts and cheese follow, and the oil is stirred in at the end. A blender works too if it is kept cold and used in short pulses, so the basil does not darken. Pesto is never cooked: it is mixed into hot pasta off the heat and loosened with a little cooking water.

In Liguria pesto dresses trofie and trenette, often cooked together with sliced potatoes and green beans, as well as potato gnocchi, and a spoonful goes into minestrone.