Pesto alla genovese
Basil pounded with garlic, pine nuts, salt, parmesan and pecorino, loosened with olive oil and tossed raw through trofie or trenette.
What makes it pesto alla genovese
- Young basil, pounded, not blitzed warm.
- Pine nuts, garlic, and both parmesan and pecorino.
- Raw — tossed with hot pasta, never cooked.
Where it comes from
Liguria's narrow strip between the mountains and the sea grows a small-leaved, sweet basil, and Genoa made it into its sauce, pounded in a marble mortar with a wooden pestle — the name comes from pestare, to pound. Written recipes appear from the nineteenth century, with older garlic-and-cheese pastes behind them.
In Genoa it's often tossed with trofie or trenette cooked in the same pot as green beans and potato. It's never heated — only stirred through the hot pasta with a splash of its water.
How it varies
- Trenette avvantaggiate
- With potato and green beans boiled alongside the pasta.
- Pistou
- Provence's cousin, just along the coast, usually without pine nuts.
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