Fresh basil makes delicious sauce that freezes well

Press, 13 March 1985, Page 12

Fresh basil makes delicious sauce that freezes well

Alison Holst’s

Food Facts. 4*l

If you grow basil on your kitchen windowsill, and treat it with tender loving care, you may find that it grows so vigorously that you cannot eat it fast enough. By February the tiny plants I pot in November have grown into large bushy monsters, 50-60 cm tall. Wonderful! We then enjoy basil-flavoured dressings,

sauces, salads, cooked vegetables etc., and we eat the leaves with the deliciously sweet little tomatoes that I pick by the hundreds from our “sweet one hundred” variety of tomato plants. I recently cut the basil bushes back to less than half their original height, and used all the removed leaves, flowering heads etc. to make a wonderful dark green sauce — pesto. This sauce keeps fairly well in the refrigerator, but

for absolute safety I prefer to freeze it. Since it doesn’t freeze into a solid ice block, I can prise out spoonfuls when I need them. Added to mayonnaise, hot lightly buttered vegetables or pasta, or french dressings my pesto goes a long way, and I hope it will last for months.

According to my reference books, it will. It’s flavour may fade a little, since I have been disappointed in the past when I have tried to freeze or dry plain basil

leaves for long-term storage. The aroma of fresh basil leaves bears absolutely no resemblance to that of dried basil leaves — although I use these in winter when other fresh basil flavourings are not around, they most certainly can not be used for this sauce.

This pesto is not salty. When it is used enough salt should be added to bring out the flavours, both of the basil, and of the food served with the pesto. 3-4 cups lightly packed basil

leaves 1 cup parsley leaves (optional) 4 garlic cloves */4-% cup parmesan cheese (optional) *4 cup pinenuts, almonds or walnuts (optional) 16-1 cup oil Pick the basil leaves off the main stalks. Use the stalks and seed heads if they are immature, young and tender. Break the large parsley leaves into smaller pieces.

Put all the leaves in a food processor or blender. Cut off the root ends of the garlic ciwes. Squash the

garlic cloves then remove the papery skin. Put the garlic in with the leaves, then add, if you like, and if you want to, the parmesan cheese and the nuts.

(Pinenuts are very expensive and may be replaced with other nuts if desired.) Blanch almonds if using them, and leave the walnuts to stand in boiling water for 10 minutes before use if you feel they have not been recently shelled, and may be a little rancid. Traditionally, olive oil is used for this mixture, but you can replace it with soya or corn oil, or use part olive oil and part another oil. Start to process the leaves, adding up to half a cup of oil. Push the leafy mixture, down, if necessary, so that the leaves are finely chopped. (In some processors or blenders you should chop the leaves roughly first, or make smaller quantities and mix these later.) Keep adding oil until you have a dark green paste just liquid enough to pour. Pour into lidded glass or plastics containers and refrigerate or freeze. ■