How To Make Pesto


Ingredients for pesto sauce

  • 30 basil leaves
  • 1 tablespoon sheep cheese
  • 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
  • A handful pine nuts
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • A glass olive oil
  • A pinch coarse salt

How to make pesto

Wash the basil leaves, rinse them and put them in a marble mortar. If you don’t have a marble mortar use a ceramic one or any other you have available.

Roast the pine nuts a little bit in a skillet or grill-like pan and add them to the mortar together with the peeled garlic cloves and the coarse salt.

Grind the ingredients of the mortar while you add the two kinds of cheese slowly and alternatively. Grind the mixture until you get a green smooth paste.

Now start adding slowly the olive oil to the pesto sauce. If your mortar is not large enough first put the pesto sauce in a bowl and then add the glass of olive oil. Mix well with a wooden spoon.

Just before you add the pesto sauce to the pesto pasta add a tablespoon of the cooking juice.

The pesto sauce recipe goes very well with trenette or lasagna Italian pasta

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Vinaigrette Recipe

This vinaigrette recipe is ideal as salad dressing or as dressing for other Mediterranean recipes that are served cold or at room temperature.

Ingredients for this vinaigrette recipe

  • 6 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp red wine or balsamic vinegar
  • A pinch white pepper
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Vinaigrette recipe instructions

The best olive oil for vinaigrette is a fruity olive oil, possibly extra virgin, or a light one.

As for the vinegar, use a first quality red wine or a balsamic vinegar. A red wine vinaigrette is always stronger in taste than a balsamic vinaigrette recipe. In any case it’s extremely important that the vinegar you choose is a good one. Cheap vinegars can be very acid and sour or simply taste awful and spoil your vinaigrette recipe.

Add 6 tablespoons of fruity olive oil to a mortar or a bowl. Add the 2 tablespoons of the vinegar of your choice. Add the pepper and the salt, and mix well. Pour the the vinaigrette salad dressing over your salad or cold dish, or serve it in a sauce bowl.

Now some people like very strong vinaigrattes and think they can add as much vinegar as they want. I reccomend that in this case you add two and a half to a maximum of three tablespoons of vinegar instead of two, but no more because the vinaigrette recipe would then be just vinegar and much too sour. The ingredient balance would be completely lost.

Vinaigrette recipes are sauces that people tend to forget. They are a somewhat different sauce that will make your lunch and dinner sharp.

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Anchovy Sauce Recipe

This homemade Italian anchovy sauce is called Salsa d’Acciughe in Italian.


The anchovy sauce is used for pasta with anchovies, a typical Italian pasta recipe. It’s a quick and easy Mediterranean recipe that can help you many times when you are in a hurry and hungry.

Ingredients for this anchovy recipe

  • Whole anchovies in salt
  • Olive oil
  • A pinch black pepper
  • 4 tbsp concentrated tomato juice
  • 2 tbsp Butter

Anchovies recipe preparation instructions

This anchovy recipe does not call for the fillets of anchovies prepared for hors d’œuvre, but the less expensive and larger whole anchovies in salt to be had in bulk or cans at large dealers.

Wash the anchovies thoroughly in plenty of water. Remove head, tail, backbone and skin and they are ready for use.

Put five or six anchovies into a colander and dip quickly into boiling water to loosen the skins, remove the salt, skin and bone them.

Chop the Mediterranean anchovies and put over the fire in a saucepan with a generous quantity of oil and some pepper. Do not let them boil, but when they are hot add two tablespoons of butter and three or four tablespoons of concentrated tomato juice made by cooking down canned tomatoes and rubbing through a sieve.

When this anchovy sauce is used to season spaghetti or another pasta, the pasta must be boiled in water that is only slightly salted and care must be taken not to let it become too soft, but al dente.

The ingredients above mentioned are for about one pound of spaghetti, macaroni or other Italian pasta. Because anchovies are fat fish, the anchovy sauce is not only delicious but also healthy.

Go ahead, cook your favorite pasta and pour some anchovy sauce over it.

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