🍅 Pesto alla trapanese

Pesto alla trapanese is a raw pasta sauce from Trapani in western Sicily: ripe tomatoes pounded in a mortar with garlic, basil and salt, finished with olive oil and grated aged pecorino. The Accademia Italiana della Cucina lists the dish as 'pasta con il pesto trapanese', known in the local dialect as pasta cu l'agghia, 'pasta with garlic'.

For four people the Accademia gives 500 g of ripe, not too watery tomatoes, 400 g of busiate, 50 g of aged pecorino, two garlic cloves, a small bunch of basil, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. The garlic and basil are pounded well in a mortar with a little salt; the tomatoes, peeled, seeded and cut into small pieces, are added, the mixture is seasoned with salt and pepper, and the oil goes in last. Meanwhile the pasta is cooked in plenty of salted water, drained and dressed with the pesto, and the pecorino is grated over at the table. Another version, the Accademia says, adds peeled almonds, sometimes toasted, in small pieces.

Busiate are a typical fresh pasta of the Trapani area, about ten centimetres long, made by rolling the dough around a 'busu', the thin stem of a grass, which helps them hold the sauce. The garlic, according to the Accademia, should ideally be the pink garlic of Nubia, a small village near Trapani, with its own flavour and aroma.

The Accademia also lists ways to top the pasta: fried aubergine, sausage, fried potatoes, fried courgettes or small fried fish. What sets the sauce apart from Genoa's pesto alla genovese is above all the tomato; basil, garlic, olive oil and cheese are shared.