Wild Garlic Pesto

So I made Wild Garlic Pesto today, I couldn't stop thinking about it after writing my woodsy post last night and drooling over all that lush green on my computer screen. I desperately wanted to taste the colour of my photos, I wanted to see what fresh Spring woodland tastes like.

I found a very simple recipe that was different to a classic pesto in that there was no parmesan cheese involved, just three ingredients seasoned with salt and pepper. All you require is wild garlic leaves, almonds and olive oil. I absolutely LOVE simple recipes like this, only three ingredients!! I think I was supposed to have flaked almonds but I could only find whole blanched almonds at the farm shop. I started out attempting to cut them into flakes, but after seven nuts I gave up and threw them all into my chopper for a quick blitz. Easy peasy.

The next stage is to toast the nuts gently in a dry frying pan (no oil) until they turn golden and smell divine - stir them all the time so that they don't catch and burn as they change colour very quickly.

And then it's just a simple case of whizzing it all up in the chopper, how easy is this? Oh, one other thing about the ingredients, I found I only had half the required amount of wild garlic, so I added in the same amount of baby spinach to make up the quantity.

Whizzing is a fun thing to do in the kitchen, I love the speed of it very much. I also really love my little chopper, it's a Bosch one (from Amazon UK) and is one of my most used kitchen gadgets (along with my digital scales). I was impressed how easily it demolished the almonds, don't think I've chopped nuts in it before. I couldn't really do the drizzling of the oil as instructed, so just had to add the oil a bit at a time, whizz, add more oil, whizz etc until I ended up with a smooth paste.

I dolloped the lush green mixture into a mini kilner jar, covering the pesto with oil as the recipe said. Apparently, this will keep for a few months in the fridge, that's if I don't eat garlic pesto pasta for lunch every day for a week which I'm seriously tempted to do.

Will you just feast your eyes on that colour!!! I haven't messed with this photo at all, wild garlic pesto really is this green in real life and the smell.....mmmmmmmmm, the smell is completely wonderful.

I had just enough dry tagliatelle pasta in the cupboard to rustle up a simple lunch for one. Pasta cooked al dente, tossed with a generous dollop of wild garlic pesto and a little finely grated cheese added at the end.

I would like to tell you that I took my time and savoured every fork full, but in truth I wolfed the lot in double quick time. I was a bit ashamed of my lack of savouring, but I just couldn't help myself. So yummy. Every mouthful tasted deliciously green and wonderfully garlicky, such a beautiful, simple Spring lunch. It was every bit as good as I hoped it would be.

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Comments

[Cathy]

Mmmm, I can almost smell the garlic! We pick it every year and I make pesto from it, keeping a jar in the fridge and freezing the rest in ice cube trays. This means we can have it all year round. Your pasta looks delicious.
Cathy x

[CJ]

It looks absolutely delicious. I've never tried wild garlic pesto but I shall definitely give it a go now, it's exactly the sort of thing I love. All the better for being foraged. CJ xx