Pesto Sauce (Recipe)

Because I'm annoyingly picky but obsessed with pesto, so when I realised, the sort of pesto they serve in HK is mainly the olive oil mixed with bit of chopped basil, I've decided to take this matter into my hands and make my own pesto!!

When I went herb shopping in HK, I began missing UK~ This is because it is not that easy to get your hands on fresh herbs in HK. I'd encounter small (honestly small) package of basil costing like 4-5 quid. This is absurd, insane, rip off...totally unnecessary...well, not if you are craving for creamy pesto sauce for over a year but cannot find anyone that suit your taste. So yeah, I went into the supermarket and got slaughtered and broke my bank on HERBSSSS~

What you need:

• 2 cups of Basil & of parsley in the ratio of 3:1 (Usually, I do not recommend putting parsley in, however, basil are VERY expensive in HK, I mean, unless you feel like putting 15 quid just on herbs into a blender that serves 2, then please go ahead and do so...I'm a poor student living on a budget!)
• 6 cloves of garlic (or more, if you like it more garlicky...I love garlic~ so I think I ended up putting more than that in it.)
• 3 tbsp of pine nuts & 1 tbsp of cashew nut (well, I've ran out of pine nuts...some ppl actually like less nuts in their pesto sauce, really depends on how nutty you like it to be.)
• 1/2 cup of Parmigiano-reggiano (again, add / minus the ingredients to suit your own taste, you can also use parmesan or other similar cheese, but I like Parmigiano more.)
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 1/3 cup of butter
• 1 cup of cream
• salt and pepper to flavour (I used just a pinch of white pepper instead, but some like black pepper instead)

What to do:

1. Diced the butter / cheese into strips or small cubes (depending how strong your blender is...as you can see my sorry - axx one that I uses in HK)
2. Throw in the herbs, garlic, butter, cheese and oil.
3. Once mixed into a smooth paste, add in the nuts
4. Pour in the cream
5. Add in Salt and pepper to flavour, voila~~

Now, now, you can keep the sauce in the fridge and apparently it does freezes rather well, though I've never tried.


This is what I've done with it, sometimes I'd use prawn and scallop instead of mushroom...again I had mushroom in the fridge so...haha just thought I'd make use of it~

I've cooked the mushroom in garlic, butter, white wine and a dash of stock, put it aside.
Then I diluted the pesto sauce with milk, added more salt in, put in the cooked spaghetti.
Once the sauce started bubbling, then it's ready to serve.

With prawn and scallop, you can cook it with garlic, sliced shallot, bit of chilli flakes, salt and pepper, dash of lemon juice. Off you go children, time to cook~~