Brontedolci Pistachio Pesto

190g jar - Bronte, Sicily

This pesto from Brontedolci in Sicily is, as you may have guessed, the main ingredient is Sicilian pistachios (55%), along with sunflower oil, salt, and pepper. No Basil. Yet, if we think of pesto as mortar & pestle, then this is a savory pistachio pesto.

Look in the jar and see green (with texture). It's the beautiful green of Sicilian pistachios with flakes of black pepper. When you taste it, you will get this wonderful smooth feel that is creamy and then finishes with little, tiny bits of pistachios in the pits of your teeth. The "bite" really never ends as you move your tongue around tasting pistachio!

Using this Brontedolci pesto di pistachio as it was intended is even better than that. Take pasta, cook it al dente, drain with a touch of pasta water left, twirl and twist in the pesto in the pan, and plate into small bowls. This is the perfect side dish and very filling! Or if convention is not your thing, think a dollop on your fish or with tofu!

Pesto is full of basil. Well, not always. Interestingly, it is translated here (and in many places in the world) as a green sauce made with basil.

Except that pesto has more than just one meaning. It also means to pound, beat, grind, trample on, work over, and pestle. To pestare, pestle perhaps is pesto.

One could speculate that the ancient Romans, who made and ate a paste of cheese, herbs, salt, oil, vinegar, and nuts, are the originators of pesto.

The nucleus of modern-day pesto started in North Africa and India when basil became the main ingredient. Basil pesto took hold in Provence (as pistou) and in Liguria (as Pesto alla Genovese). In the 1860s, a recipe for pesto with basil was published in La Cuciniera Genovese. Then the recipe traveled with the immigrants to the New World.

Italian basil pesto was introduced to a much wider audience when Italian immigrant and University of Washington Professor, Angelo Pellegrini's pesto recipe was published in a 1946 issue of Sunset Magazine. The recipe consisted of a little bit of this and a little bit of that, with no precise measurement.

This makes sense when you think that pesto, which translates to crush or bash, is a combination of just a handful of ingredients mashed together. You can see how you might want to add a little more or a little less of one thing or another to match your palate.

To make a typical pesto, you crush fresh young basil, Italian pine nuts, add Parmigiano-Reggiano, sea salt, and olive oil. (The Silver Spoon New Edition)

That's all it takes; a mortar and pestle, elbow grease, and you can make your own. Or, you can use a food processor, though the results are less textural and more paste-like.