Sun Dried Tomato Pesto with Walnuts and Lemon
1 cup sun dried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped – reserve oil
½ cup toasted walnuts, chopped
3 – 4 cloves garlic, rough chopped
2 tsp salt
¼ cup parsley leaves
Zest and juice of ½ lemon (optional; use if serving with Farfalle Pasta with Sundried Tomato Pesto and Ricotta or Tofu .)
Combine ingredients in bowl of food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add some of the reserved oil if sauce is too thick. Scrape sides of bowl to mix and pulse a few more seconds to chop any remaining larger pieces and taste for seasonings.
Tip #1: Americans prefer their sauces too thick to suit Italians. The Italian method of thinning the sauce with the hot pasta water just before serving works especially well with pestos. Add a little water to the sauce before tossing it with the pasta, and it will cling to the pasta better. Pesto can be thinned quite a bit.
Tip #2: Buy raw nuts and toast them yourself. Nuts become rancid easily due to their high oil content, so keeping them in the freezer and toasting as many as you need will help the flavor a great deal. Put them in a sautee pan over low heat, watch them like a hawk, and as soon as they are warm and toasty take them out of the pan and in a cool container to keep them from going over the edge to burnt nuts, which are awful.
Date: April 15, 2010