Balcony Pesto

I want to live inside a farmers market. My dream is one day have a garden, full on river cottage style. But realistically I think I’ll have to settle for a veggie patch. But even that is a fantasy - at the moment all I have is a tiny balcony and a giant plastic pot my dad gave me. For now, my teeny inner-west balcony can only sustain basil, mint and somewhat sad looking parsley I’ve got growing out of old coffee cups.

This past spring I properly learned how to propagate basil. All I was missing was the correct pruning method, and ever since I’ve had no reason to purchase basil. It’s been a genuine joy, being able to step out to the balcony and grab just as much as needed, not having the pressure of having to use up an entire bunch that is already sort of wilted and browning in its plastic chokehold when you get it from the shops.

Once you get a basil plant growing it is almost impossible to stop it thriving. I’ve been making pesto around once a week since October. Each time its slightly different than the last - the pepperiness of the leaves fluctuating from week to week, how heavy handed I am with the garlic, if I add in some lemon juice or not (I almost always add lemon juice, but sometimes I have committed my lemons to other causes). This is the reason to make things yourself, to revel in the small differences in each variation of something you make regularly.

I make my pesto in a pestle and mortar. You can definitely make this same recipe in a food processor - it is much faster and less work, though the lack of variation in texture is boring. The blades chop up the basil, garlic cloves, cheese and pine nuts in perfect uniformity. It doesn’t taste as light or look as unique, and resembles that which comes from a Barilla jar. This is fine, if you’re into that, but I’m of the opinion that if you’re going make something at home, have it look and taste homemade. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Below is a general pesto recipe and two different ways to preserve it. You can eat it with any pasta you want but I love fusilli for fresh pesto - the smashed bits of basil leaf get snagged in the coil of each corkscrew, holding flavor and distributing color among the pasta.

Perfectly coats around 200g of cooked fusilli pasta

1 x bunch of basil

1-2 whole cloves of garlic, peeled

1 tablespoon of pine nuts

A thumb sized piece of pecorino Romano

3-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Zest of 1 lemon, juice of half a lemon (optional)

You will use the following method to process each ingredient of the pesto in stages: Crushing the ingredient in the pestle, bringing it up and down as if you’re mashing potatoes, but with more gusto. After few motions, proceed to grind the ingredient by moving the pestle around the edges of the mortar.

1. Start by smashing the garlic, followed by the pine nuts and then the basil. Depending on the size of your mortar (mine is small) you will need to add to the basil in stages.

2. Once you have the basil to a wilted, dark green looking mass, add in salt and pepper, and continue to grind it together.

3. Next, grate in the cheese and grind.

4. Add in the olive oil (do it a table spoon at a time so you can control the consistency as you go).

5. Taste and season if needed. Add the lemon juice if using (the acidity cuts through the oil, so I highly recommend it, even a teaspoon at a time).

6. Season again to taste. If using immediately, put your pasta on to boil. If using later but on the same day, pour enough olive oil over it in the mortar to cover the top (this will keep it from browning until you use it). Add the pesto to your drained pasta, reserving some pasta water to loosen the sauce. I like to add the pasta water (around 2 tbsps) to the empty vessel the pesto was in, mix it up, and add it back to the pasta to get all the pesto-y goodness.

7. If you want to preserve it or you’ve made a large amount, put it in a jar, packing it somewhat tightly. Pour more olive oil over it again so it covers the top and refrigerate. It should last in your fridge a couple of weeks.

8. If you want to keep it even longer, roll the pesto up in baking paper to make a log, then twist the ends like a cracker. Freeze it for around an hour and half hours.

9. Remove before it freezes solid, unwrap and slice into however many portions you want to get out of each disc (I recommend about a 5cm wide by 2cm thick disc for around two people).

10. Re-shape, re-roll and re-wrap, then set it rest back into the freezer and you’ll have summer pesto that will keep for at least three months.