I thought we could do with another vegan pesto recipe in the cookbook, so here it is (olive pesto is the other one). This is made with much the same ingredients as the standard green stuff, which I detail in my recipe for pasta with pesto, but unlike in that recipe, there's no cheese in the list of ingredients here. Just like the first pesto recipe, however, this is another pestle and mortar recipe, although as pine nuts are rather soft, good results can be achieved using a glass spice jar and a ceramic bowl, or similar combination of substitute items.
The inspiration for this recipe comes from the Soup Kitchen in Amsterdam. It's a wee place just south of Central Station that specialises in soups, salads and sandwiches. I always go there for the soup, usually straight after arriving in the city by train, and of the several vegetarian options available, my soup of preference is almost always cream of spinach. When you order, the woman who serves asks, 'Do you want small or medium?' even though 'medium' and 'large' are the sizes given in the menu, which is rather confusing and surely a reason for going straight to the Soup Kitchen from the station, and not going to Homegrown Fantasy coffee shop first.
After establishing the size of portion you'd prefer, the next question is 'Would you like pesto with that?' and the answer is always yes. Well, mine is, but that's what I suspect most people who go regularly would also answer. In the menu it says 'with red pesto' and the red pesto you get tastes just like the stuff I'm about to offer construction instructions for shortly, although I cannot say that the ingredients in the Soup Kitchen's red pesto are the same as in mine. But does it matter? They're both delicious.
There's no need to be exact about the proportions here. And given the manner in which I'm about to present them, it would be difficult even if you tried.
About six or seven pieces of sun-dried tomato
A handful of pine nuts
1 clove of garlic
A few large pinches of dried basil
A few pinches of crushed, dried red chillies
A splash of olive oil
Salt
Soak the tomato pieces in a little hot water for about fifteen minutes. While they're soaking, roast the pine nuts by heating a dry frying pan and swirling them about in it for half a minute or so until they just begin to take on a golden hue. Peel the garlic clove and roughly chop it into a few pieces. Pound them until you have a rough paste then add the pine nuts and pound them too.
By this time the tomatoes will have softened and it will be time to chop them up small and add them to the mixture. Throw them in and give them a pounding, then add the herbs, chillies, salt and oil and stir everything together. The more oil you use, the softer the texture of your pesto will be; otherwise, the pine nuts and tomatoes tend to soak up all the available liquid and you might find that a short while after making the pesto, it has gone quite solid. If you don't want to add much oil, you can soften the pesto with a little of the water that the tomatoes were soaked in, but be careful you don't overdo it.
Tomato pesto livens up pasta beautifully. Just stir some in after the pasta has been cooked and drained. Serve alongside a green salad and you'll have a light and tasty meal. And of course, pesto is also delicious added to a bowl of soup just before serving....