Pasta with home-made pesto and broccoli

Name: How to cook Pasta with home-made pesto and broccoli - cookcic.com
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Us

Introduce

Chef :

Becky

Pasta with home-made pesto and broccoli

Pesto is my favourite pasta sauce. I always have a batch in the fridge, my kids love spreading it on hot toast and it's great to use with grilled chicken too as well as for pastas and pizzas. I like experimenting with different herbs (parsley, coriander, rocket....) and nuts (cashew, walnuts, almonds) to make this great pasta sauce. This recipe is the classic basil + pine nuts recipe. A few years ago I spent an amazing month in an old Italian villa overlooking Florence, and was lucky to be next door to a very kind Italian grandmother who welcomed me into her kitchen every time delicious smells drew me to the window, and explained how to make some traditional recipes. This is her pesto recipe and the first time I made it was with her.

Ingredient

Food ration :

4 servings

Cooking time :

30 mins

generous bunch fresh basil

1 cup

pine nuts

120 gr.

parmesan cheese

generous glass good quality olive oil

lemon (juice of)

4 cloves

garlic (6 if it's a small bulb)

few pinches of salt

3 tbsp.

pesto sauce

1 tablespoon

mixed seeds

1 packet

tallerines

small head broccoli

Cooking instructions

* Step 1

Break the cheese into smaller pieces, put in the food processor with the pine nuts and blitz

* Step 2

Add the rest of the pesto ingredients and blitz again until you obtain a smooth, vibrant green sauce

* Step 3

If the sauce is too "dry" add more olive oil blitz and carry on adding and blitzing until you get this kind of texture. Taste and add salt accordingly

* Step 4

Save in an airtight container. It will keep for days in the fridge.

* Step 5

For the broccoli pasta, wash the broccoli well. Heat about 4 cm. of water in a small saucepan and when it is boiling add a pinch of salt, the broccoli florets and cover with a lid. Steam for 4 minutes and drain immediatly. Hold under cold running water to stop it from getting limp. Cook the pasta according to the instructions in the packet and drain thoroughly. Mix the hot pasta with the pesto sauce in the pan. Add the broccoli and transfer to an oven dish. Sprinkle with seeds and put a dollup of pesto on the seeds. Put in a pre-heated oven at 180º for 10 minutes.