By: Adapted from Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, www.honest-food.net
Ramps taste like spring. This pesto can go on everything from pasta to seafood.
Time: Preparation 15 minutes
Serving: 8 Servings
Ingredients
- 3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts or chopped walnuts, pecans or almonds
- 3 tablespoons grated cheese, such as pecorino
- 2 cups ramp or other wild onion leaves, about 2 dozen
- Salt to taste
- About 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Preparation
- If you are blanching your onions, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add enough salt to make it taste like the sea. Set a large bowl of ice water nearby. Plunge the ramp leaves into the boiling water for 1 minute. Remove and quickly cool them down in the ice water. Squeeze dry with a tea cloth or paper towels.
- Chop the ramp leaves and set aside. Pesto is best made with a mortar and pestle, thus the name, which means “pound.” You can of course make this in a food processor, but it will not be the same. To start, add the toasted pine nuts and garlic and crush them.
- Add the cheese and ramps and commence pounding. Mash everything together, stirring with the pestle and mashing well so it is all fairly uniform.
- Start adding olive oil. How much? Depends on how you are using your pesto. If you are making a spread, maybe 1/4 cup. If a pasta sauce, double that. Either way, you add 1 tablespoon at a time, pounding and stirring to incorporate it. When it’s a nice rough paste, taste it and add salt if you need to; sometimes the cheese makes the pesto salty enough by itself. Serve as a spread on bread, as an additive to a minestrone, as a pasta sauce or as a dollop on fish or poultry.
