Pesto and me – early days of discovering food from across the world
When I started blogging , I discovered many new recipes, and although some of them were too intimidating to try (like making puff pastry sheets at home !! Grrrr, how i wish we get that here ), some of them have given me confidence that I could cook better even with local ingredients .
MasterChef Australia was primarily responsible for getting me to discover so many many techniques, and so was blog hopping. And then the bookmarks grew and grew…While I hope I could strike off every bookmarked recipe as done, I am also slowly learning the ropes of making small replacements in my original bookmark to suit my pantry
essentials as well as using local produce.
One such recipe was making homemade pesto. It figured in so many recipes as an ingredient I almost lost track of it. Till my dear friend Mir mentioned she substitutes walnuts and even peanuts in place of the pricier pine nuts.I had a batch of roasted walnuts at home and while the original plan was to make basil pesto, the lure of the super fresh green coriander in the refrigerator was too hard to resist. Another pesto recipe you might like is this Vegan (and GF) Mint n basil pesto
So in a jiffy was made the pesto. So quick that you can make it in less time than you take to
read this post. And while I am giving you approx measurements we did enjoy making a small batch of this which I used
for my spaghetti and also some for wholewheat pull apart bread over the weekend..Go on, shed all inhibitions and make that pesto while you figure out endless possibilities to use it up !
Where can we use this pesto:
 Coriander – garlic pesto Pull Apart Rolls
So what’s your favourite way of using up pesto ? I would be keen to know..
Prep time -10 mins, zero cook ; makes approx 100 gms of pesto. Keeps for upto a week under refrigeration.
Ingredients :
- Coriander – 1.5 cups (packed)
- Garlic – 5-6 pods
- Salt – to taste
- Olive oil – 3 tsp
- Roasted Walnuts / pine-nuts – 1/3 cup
- In a spice grinder blitz the coriander with the garlic for 1 min, add the walnuts and blitz again
for 20-30 seconds. - Add salt and olive oil and grind for 20/30 secs more till you see a slightly coarse, slightly smooth consistency (I got distracted at this stage and blitzed it for a longer time till the chunks totally disappeared. Nevertheless the taste wasn’t compromised !)
- Â So that’s super easy isn’t it ?
- Store in a sterile glass container for upto a week. You can slather it on buttered sandwiches, make dinner rolls using this pesto etc..
love this very flavorful pesto!!!
You could try using almonds too …tastes delicious…I like the coriander version..it's handy.
Garlic, cilantro and walnuts…very innovative. It is is nice to see recipes adapted to locally available ingredients.
Wow! Looks so good!
wow such an flavorful pesto , coriander version is really interesting with walnuts 🙂
Flavourful Sauce, Looks so good..
Coriander is an interesting addition to pesto.
An interesting pesto and lovely color.
What a lovely bright green colour! Pesto is too good to resist.
lovely colored and innovative pesto and thx for the mention 🙂
Coriander and walnuts interesting combination beautiful color
Love this flavorful and creamy pesto..
That is an innovative pesto.
What a lovely dish Kaly…I make it with mint actually..just coriander alone sounds good as well..
Such an interesting combo….Never thought of cilantro in pesto!