Kitchen Tip

Pesto is now so commonplace that it has become culinary shorthand for almost any kind of pureed sauce--preferably of at least a vaguely Mediterranean slant. You can buy prepared pesto in the refrigerator case at most grocery stores--right beside the fresh pastas. But these have been treated with acid to give them shelf life. Untreated basil puree would turn black within minutes.

If you’re curious about how a real Genovese pesto is made, here’s a recipe from “La Vera Cuciniera Genovese” by Emanuele Rossi, which is quoted in “Grande Enciclopedia Illustrata della Gastronomia,” a kind of Italian Larousse published in Italy by Reader’s Digest: “Put three or four garlic cloves in a mortar with some basil leaves (depending on how perfumed the basil is, at a rough proportion of four or five leaves for every garlic clove), a little Olanda cheese [similar to an Edam or a Gouda] and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Grind and mix the mixture until you have made a paste, then add enough olive oil.”

This is a little vague, even by Italian recipe standards, and, the book notes, it includes neither Pecorino Romano, pine nuts nor coarse salt, all of which are considered traditional ingredients (the salt, the book says, preserves the green color of the basil). But where pesto is concerned, it’s hard to go wrong.