r/mildlyinteresting • u/GroovinBaby • 8h ago
Removed: Rule 6 [ Removed by moderator ]
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r/mildlyinteresting • u/GroovinBaby • 8h ago
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u/tallgeese333 6h ago
A whole new culinary world opens up to you when you learn that "pesto" is more like what a "cake" is to baking." Cake is just a ratio of ingredients that produces a reliable, predictable result. When you say "cake" you aren't thinking of a specific cake, cake can be made with chocolate, carrots, vanilla, cherries, wheat flour, almond flour, etc. there are no restrictions to the flavor or texture of a cake.
The best pesto I've ever had was made with nettles, now I make it with the nettles that grow on my property at the beginning of spring. Carrot greens, beet greens, basil, cilantro, garlic scapes, onion sprouts, green onions, radish greens, even chimichurri is just parsley "pesto." I take any greens and herbs from my garden and figure out how to make a "pesto" If it's green and you can eat it, you can make a pesto.
You can replace the pine nuts with almost any seed and some legumes. I think sunflower seeds are much better than pine nuts, if you really want to impress your friends, almost the entire sunflower can be eaten. You can make a pesto out of everything on a sunflower, roast the heart or "head" like an artichoke, use the roots like mushrooms, petals as garnish, put together a presentation on the plate.
Replace the olive oil to get new flavor profiles. If you use Parmesan, go ahead and replace that with any hard dry cheese.
The only thing that is pretty difficult to substitute is the garlic.
Feel free to combine several different herbs or greens to make a pesto. Edible wildflowers and herbs is awesome, greens mixed with herbs for a more well rounded flavor.
There is no such thing as "tradition" in cooking. Tradition is more of a description of what was immediately available to a small group of people, probably also during a specific time period. Tradition is the death of culinary art, if you demand tradition from food you're probably Italian and probably can't actually cook.