IN THE KITCHEN : Up From Pesto

Am I the only one who’s sick of pesto?

The question seems almost heretical at this time of year, especially from someone who’s got a full complement of basil plants growing in their side garden.

The other day, while weeding them, it occurred to me that it has been a couple of years since I last made pesto. I tear up basil leaves for salads. I use it as an accent for soups and stews. I strew it promiscuously over slices of raw tomatoes. But it’s been a while since I made pesto, which is weird, since that’s why I started growing basil in the first place.

Pesto and I had quite a run. For years, making the first batch of pesto was a rite of summer, like picking the first tomato. I’d nurse the plants along until there were enough leaves to work with without killing them. Then I’d pick the leaves and whir them in the food processor with pine nuts or walnuts, cheese and garlic until it was all smoothly chopped. Then the oil would go in--a dribble at first, then a stream--and the paste would make that lovely shushing sound as it homogenized into one fragrant, luxurious sauce.

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Pesto also provided a ceremonious end to summer, as I pulled everything in from the garden and made massive amounts of the stuff to freeze. I remember one year the basil plants went absolutely nuts and it took almost a full weekend to wash, pick over, and puree the leaves. After several runs to the grocery store for more cheese, more pine nuts and more olive oil, I had a freezer packed with sealable plastic food bags full of green paste. It took a couple of years to go through it all and, if I remember correctly, I ended up giving a good chunk of it away when we moved.

Most perfectly, I remember pesto served on gnocchi at a restaurant in what can only be described as “pesto country”--Italy’s Ligurian coast. After a day spent walking the narrow steets, admiring the olive trees draped with netting to catch any stray fruit, it was perfect--especially when served just before a simple grilled branzino.

But now you can find packaged pesto in almost every dairy case. None of them, of course, are much good. In fact, few of them really resemble pesto. The problem is that true pesto begins to turn from forest green to olive drab within minutes of being made. To avoid that, and to meet federal packaging guidelines, commercial pestos are laced with potassium sorbate, or some other acidic ingredient that will retard spoilage. I defy you to find that, or any other acidic ingredient, in a traditional pesto recipe.

But, hey, nit-picking about packaged products? That’s a little too easy. No, my problem with pesto is that it is simply overdone. There are many wonderful herb sauces in the wide world of cooking, but none of them has much of a chance when all anyone wants is pesto.

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Take a simple, honest, hard-working herb like parsley, for example. Sure, it’s got a bit of a bad image--anything that has been plunked on that many lunch counter plates and sprinkled that liberally over bad stews has got more self-revision to do than Ollie North.

This salsa verde, another Italian herb sauce with an equally long history, is a good place to start. It looks a lot like pesto at first glance, but the flavor is much more complex, spiked with anchovies and capers and a good hit of vinegar.

There are a couple of tricks: First, make it with the flat-leaf, “Italian” parsley, which has a deeper, more interesting flavor than the curly parsley with which you’re probably more familiar. Second, don’t be too careful about separating the leaves from the stems. While too many stems will result in a gritty texture, I think they have more flavor than the leaves. If you’ll simply chop a chunk from a bunch of parsley, you’ll get about the right proportion.

Traditionally, this sauce is served in the dead of winter with the Piedmontese classic bollito misto , a kind of hodgepodge of boiled meats ranging from beef ribs and sausages to organ esoterica.

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But salsa verde works just as well in the heat of summer with grilled fish. I tried it with both swordfish and sea bass and preferred the meatiness of the swordfish, though the sea bass disappeared just as quickly.

Just don’t call it parsley pesto.

GRILLED SWORDFISH WITH SALSA VERDE

1 clove garlic, minced

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

4 (1/2-pound) swordfish steaks, about 1 inch thick

2 tablespoons olive oil

Juice 1/2 lemon

Salsa Verde

Sprinkle garlic and salt and pepper to taste over both sides of swordfish steaks. Place steaks in plastic food bag and add olive oil and lemon. Press out as much air as possible and seal tightly. Massage seasonings into steaks through plastic food bag and marinate in refrigerator at least 1 hour.

Remove steaks from plastic food bag, reserving any leftover marinade in bag, and grill steaks over medium heat until well-marked on one side, about 7 minutes. Brush with reserved marinade and carefully turn. Cook another 5 minutes until point of small sharp knife inserts easily into flesh.

Remove fish to platter and smear each with about 1 tablespoon Salsa Verde. Serve remaining sauce on side. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Each of 4 servings contains about:

567 calories; 596 mg sodium; 74 mg cholesterol; 42 grams fat; 9 grams carbohydrates; 39 grams protein; 0.39 gram fiber.

Salsa Verde

1 (1/4-inch thick) slice country-style bread, trimed of crusts and broken up

1/2 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

4 anchovy fillets

2 tablespoons capers

2 cups Italian parsley

Dash salt

In small bowl combine bread, olive oil and vinegar. Stir to coat well and set aside at least 5 minutes to soften bread.

In workbowl of food processor fitted with metal blade, combine bread, oil, vinegar, anchovies, capers and parsley. Process until fairly smooth. Season to taste with salt. Makes about 1 cup.