If there is one sauce that I love is the gluten free pesto alla genovese.
It is so called because it is an original recipe from the city of Genoa in Italy. People from Genoa are very proud of their pesto and actually have good reasons to be.
This one is home-made and raw.
One lesson I learnt very quickly when I started cooking is that the best ingredients you buy the best your food you will be able to make.
Of course you need skills to cook it too but what you purchase finally ends up in your dish, so it is always worth to make the effort and look for the best ingredients you can find.
For the pesto sauce, I couldn’t find the basil from Genoa in Paris – and actually it is very rare to find it unless you live there – so I went to Bien, my favorite organic shop here, and bought a plant of organic fresh basil with cute round leaves that looked just perfect to me.
Let’s start cooking the pesto.
Wash very gently 60 leaves of fresh basil – medium size. Grate the pecorino romano cheese. Peel one clove of fresh garlic.
Put the basil + the garlic + the pecorino romano + the pine nuts + the extra virgin olive oil in a mixer and start mixing the ingredients together. I suggest you add 2 tablespoons of water as well. It helped me get the consistency I was looking for the pesto: creamy and silky.
One more thing about the sauce, I chose not to add salt because the pecorino romano I bought was salty enough to me. I would suggest you taste the sauce once all the ingredients are mixed together and if you like it more salty, add a pinch then and mix everything together one more time.
To understand if the pesto sauce has the right consistency, please note that the olive oil has not to get separate from the rest of the sauce. About the colour, light green is recommended.
For the gluten free pasta, I went for the sedani from an Italian, artisanal brand that I like very much: La Rosa. The pasta is made of nice blend of rice and corn flours and it stays beautifully “al dente”.
To cook the pasta, put one large pot with water over medium heat. When the water is about to boil, add the pasta and then a pinch of salt.
As a personal advice, don’t trust the minutes written on the package, it is very rare that they correspond to how you like the pasta (al dente or not). I suggest to do it as I do, start tasting it after the first 5-6 minutes… it helps 🙂
Once the pasta is ready, drip it and put it into a large bowl. Add the sauce and mix it gently.
Serve the pasta with some leaves of fresh basil, almonds and cherry tomatoes previously cooked in a pan for a few minutes, with some extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of salt and a clove of garlic.
Buon Appetito!
