Erica De Mane

The Italian Recipe Exchange

Recipe: Walnut and Roasted Garlic Pesto

Here’s a really delicious recipe I got from Cindy, my hair stylist extraordinaire (go see her at Crown Salon if you want to look gorgeous). In addition to being an expert colorist and hair revamper, she’s also an accomplished and dedicated cook. Routinely she brings little bites of unusual sweet things she’s made, such as chocolate squares flavored with chilies, for her clients to nibble on while they’re in her chair.

This is her interpretation of the walnut pesto served on crostini at Gottino, a wine bar in the West Village in Manhattan that we both like very much. I did a little review of the place when it first opened a couple of years back. The pesto at Gottino, as I recall it, was basically walnuts, a bit of garlic, olive oil, and Parmigiano. Cindy says they also throw in a few sun-dried tomatoes (not sure how I missed that). I make a very simple version, often using instead of the parmigiano a few anchovies. This is great for pasta and spread on crostini, as they do it at Gottino.

Since I concoct my own interpretations of restaurant dishes all the time, it’s always interesting to see how other people taste dishes and then make them their own, and that’s partly what I want these new postings to be about, self expression, whether it’s a restaurant recipe or an old Italian family dish you’ve reconfigured. I say, bring it on.

Cindy’s pesto is more elaborate then the one from Gottino. First off, she roasts the garlic, giving it a rich mellow undertone, and then adds lemon juice and zest for brightness. She goes on to round the whole thing out with fresh thyme and rosemary. It’s a lovely melding of flavors. Her suggestion to toss a little of it into a dish of pasta with spinach seemed right on to me, although I didn’t try it that way. The first night I spread it on crostini, and on night two I decided at the last minute to stir some into chicken sautéed with white wine and shallots. It was really  a lovely addition (and this stuff keeps for about four days, so you can have it ready for impromptu dishes like this one or for an easy appetizer to offer to unexpected drop-ins).

With this Italian recipe exchange, what I try to do is keep the recipe as much as possible in the style written by the cook. Some recipes need more help than others, and I’m happy to tinker or just plain out show someone how to do it. Cindy instinctively knew how to do it. All I did in her case was put the ingredients in the order of use. But even if you send me a “talk it through” style of recipe (the way the great British food writer Elizabeth David wrote many of hers), that’s fine with me.

I love the way Cindy ends the recipe saying, “Taste it, and add more cheese or tomatoes or lemon juice until you like it.” Very good advice and often overlooked.

Here is her note and recipe:

Hey Erica, is this how you do it? Ha!

I often stop into Gottino in the West Village for a lovely glass of Italian wine, and I much enjoy their walnut pesto . . . so I did a variation on my own at home. I enjoy it on a crostini, tossed with pasta and spinach, in an omelette, on pizza . . . let’s just say I ENJOY.

Walnut and Roasted Garlic Pesto

Extra-virgin olive oil
Sun-dried tomatoes (not oil cured), 5 – 8
Walnut halves, 1 – 1½ cups
Garlic, 1 bulb
Fresh lemon, 1
Fresh thyme, 2 – 3 sprigs
Fresh rosemary, 1 – 1½ teaspoon, chopped
Parmigiano Reggiano, 1 – 3 ounces
Coarse sea salt

Place the sun-dried tomatoes in a jar, and cover them with olive oil. Put the lid on. Let it sit out overnight to soften the tomatoes and flavor the oil.

Roast the garlic: I like to peel the cloves, put them on a piece of parchment paper, drizzle them with olive oil and salt, then wrap the parchment into an envelope, then wrap THAT in foil. Then bake at 350 for about 40 minutes, until they are soft.

Zest the lemon, and then squeeze all of the juice out. You’ll need both!

I’m not super perfect with measuring, so maybe Erica can recommend here . . . but I take about 1 to 1½ cups of walnut halves and put them in the food processor. Add 3 – 5 chopped sun-dried tomatoes, the zest of the lemon and about 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 5 – 6 cloves of roasted garlic, 1 – 2 ounces of Parmigiano Reggiano, and the herbs. Pulse everything, then add the olive oil from the sun-dried tomatoes by mixing in with a fork. Taste it and add more cheese or tomatoes or lemon juice until you like it.