A Pestivus for the Rest of Us

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Occasionally, the bounty of late summer can be overwhelming, and you can find yourself compelled to invention to use up large quantities of something without getting tired of it.  (Nicole has written two excellent posts about what to do with a surfeit of squash or peaches.) My own recent invention-by-necessity involved basil: as part of my Red Earth Farm CSA, I receive and herb and flower share.  My last delivery was, in fact, an overload of basil - not just italian basil, but cinnamon, holy and thai as well.  So, what do I decide to do with it?  Pesto, of course. 

The idea was to create four distinct pestos using the underlying structure I’ve written about here.  The first pesto was, obviously, classic pesto genovese, adhering to the recipe I detailed here.  The second was thai basil, olive oil, toasted almonds, chives, mint, and farmer’s cheese.  The third was holy basil, olive oil, almonds, farmers cheese, parmesan, and onions (both raw and carmelized).  The fourth was cinnamon basil, olive oil, parsley, walnuts and goat cheese. 

The results?  The classic pesto was consistent with past efforts, so no surprises there.  The thai basil lost much of its flavor beyond a sense of something generically “basil.” Ultimately, I think thai basil is unsuited for this type of recipe; the flavors being too delicate.  (I’ve enjoyed it much as something I throw in a dish, leaves whole, almost as I might use parsley.) The cinnamon basil was good - if not quite something I’d occasionally opt for over italian pesto, which was the goal here.  The only recipe that actually met expectations was the holy basil pesto.  If you are unfamiliar with holy basil (and I was prior to this delivery), it has an extraordinary aroma (the Red Earth Farm newsletter credited an intern with qualifying it as something like “bubble gum") and sweetness.  Here, the sweetness combined well with the toasted almonds and onion.  The mild farmer’s cheese added a nice texture without overwhelming the basil. 

It’s one thing to improvise a variation on a theme, as I’ve done in the past.  It’s quite another, I’ve learned, to re-imagine a recipe to an extent that I might consciously choose holy basil or cinnamon over italian.  It may not have been the success I was hoping for (Where’s the Festivus Pole?), but it was an enjoyable challenge - not to mention the leftover basil I now have frozen and waiting for winter.