Hectic Host: Hey Pesto! Super Pasta Suppers in Seconds.

Pesto sauce really is a magic little ingredient; a very healthy foodstuff, packed full of flavour, a jar of freshly made pesto sauce will keep for up to a week in the fridge. Perfect to pull out of the hat for an impromptu pasta supper. It can also be used in many other recipes; all creating the illusion that you gone to a lot of effort when in reality all you have really done is beaten a few foodstuffs together with a rock. 

Pesto sauce originated in the Liguria region of Italy and takes its name from the Italian word to crush pestare, the same word from which we derive our word pestle. Which is exactly what you will need. Take you pestle, we have some marvellous 6 cm traditional marble pestle and mortars in the shop which are perfect for this purpose, add your basil leaves, garlic, ground black pepper, rock salt and a little olive oil and work into a smooth 'cream', into which you crush pine nuts and mix in grated hard cheese. Shazam; supper in seconds.

The most obvious way to serve your pesto is simply with spaghetti or trenette, which is traditional in Liguria. You could also add some cooked chicken or steamed broccoli to your pesto sauce, in which case I would not worry bout being purist and use a more manageable pasta such as penne. Both of these are delicious cold the next day in the kids' lunch boxes too.

Here’s what else you could try:

• Sauté some scallops in butter then stir in some pesto sauce. 
• Roast red and yellow peppers, serve mixed with pasta and pesto sauce. 
• Linguine with steamed mussels and pesto sauce. 
• Cold octopus salad dressed with pesto. 
• Use pesto sauce instead of tomato on a pizza base topped with goat’s cheese. 
• Pesto stuffed mushrooms. Grill some upturned mushrooms with their stems removed, and filled with pesto sauce. 
• Smooth under the skin of a chicken before roasting in the normal way. 
• Use on grilled steaks in place of herb butter. This works wonderfully well with grilled salmon steaks too, or you could flake some grilled salmon into your pesto pasta. 
• If you have any letter over bread, cut into slices, smear with pesto and bake in the oven. Delicious topped with chopped tomatoes. 
• Pesto and lemon risotto. Cook your Arborio rice as you would usually, stir in pesto sauce, add a squeeze of lemon and grate over some hard cheese. 
• Add a dash to scrambled eggs or an omelette mix.

For perfect pesto every time you will need:

• 1 bunch fresh basil. 
• 200 gm grated Sardo, Pecorino or Parmesan cheese. 
• 2 cloves of garlic. 
• Splash of good quality olive oil. 
• 1 handful pine nuts. 
• Rock salt & ground black pepper. 
• A little lemon juice. 

Method:

• Crush the basil, garlic, salt and pepper in a mortar and pestle until finely ground. 
• Add the olive oil, a little at a time, until creamy. 
• Dry-roast the pine nuts in a hot pan until golden, then crush into the pesto while still hot. 
• Stir in the grated cheese. 
• Squeeze in a little lemon juice. 

Now you just need the wine. Open Sesame!

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