Thursday, October 1, 2009

Tonights Pesto Experiment

Dinnertime today was all about using odds and ends. Here's what I had to work with:


Chicken Breast that we had thawed a day or so ago and was about to go bad

Half a bunch of Italian FL Parsley and Half a Bunch of Cilantro that were at their last day

Just enough funky organic pasta that was getting too dry

Tomatoes that were getting a little too ripe



So I decided to try a pesto pasta with chicken! The chicken was butterflied and seasoned with a little salt, then seared in a dry pan; then cut into strips. Pasta Boiled in salted water.



The pesto was the more unusual part. I put the two half bunches of herbs along with the juice of a lemon, 2 garlic cloves and some olive oil into the magic bullet and whizzed it to make a pesto. Chopped up the tomato into a small dice and tossed everything around... The resulting Pesto was much better than the sum of it's parts. It was possibly the best balanced pesto I have ever tasted and actually tasted nothing like cilantro or parsley. It had a lovely herbaceous flavor that was totally new. Don't believe me, try it. Here is the recipe to recreate it



1 cup Cilantro

1 cup Italian Flat Leaf Parsley

2 small organic garlic cloves

Juice of one lemon

Enough olive oil to just bring together (about a 1/8-1/4 cup)

Salt to taste



Combine all the ingredients in a food processor (or magic bullet) and whiz to combine.



Hmm... I wonder what else I could make into a pesto...

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