Recipe of the month: Pesto Walnut Pasta

This particular recipe I got while watching Sanjeev Kapoor’s show Khana Khazana one weekend. Although I had never made a pesto sauce before, I decided to give it a go since it looked wholesome, simple to make and required only a handful of ingredients. What a winner it turned out to be. You can hardly ever go wrong with it. You get the fresh sweet flavor of basil, aroma of the olive oil, earthy pungency of garlic, the heat from dry red chillies, creaminess from the parmesan cheese, a sweet tartness from the cherry tomatoes and the crunchiness from the walnuts. It has become one of my favorite dishes in recent times and has a special place in my treasured recipe book. This is one recipe for which my hubby will venture out even at the most unearthly hours, to buy the required ingredients if he craves for it for breakfast the next morning 😊

This pasta features as a staple item on our weekend menu. We are such gluttons that I double the quantity mentioned in the recipe below and we are still able to finish it....just the two of us 😛

I hope you try it out and love it as much as we do!

Pesto Walnut Pasta

Preparation time: 20 min
Cooking time: 15 min 

Serves: 4
Recipe category: Main Course/Italian

Recipe Level: Easy
Recipe Source: Adapted from Sanjeev Kapoor's website

Ingredients:

400 gm pasta (penne/fusilli/spaghetti/fettucini/orzo)

10-12 walnuts, for the pesto sauce

6-8 coarsely chopped walnuts, to mix into the pasta

1-1/2 cup (60 gm) fresh Italian basil leaves

3-4 small cloves garlic, roughly chopped

4 tbsp grated parmesan cheese

2 tbsp good-quality extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp regular olive oil plus extra where needed
A squeeze of lemon juice

12-15 cherry tomatoes

1 tsp crushed dry red chillies

Salt to taste

Method:

1. Drop the pasta in a pot of boiling water to which a generous amount of salt and a splash of olive oil have been added. Stir intermittently to ensure the pasta does not stick. Cook the pasta al dente (firm but done). Remember that the pasta continues to cook in the residual heat so it should not be overcooked. Reserve half cup of the pasta water if you want the sauce to have a more runny consistency (optional). Drain the pasta and keep aside. Do not refresh the pasta with water as the starch helps the sauce to coat the pasta.
2. While the pasta is cooking, in another deep-bottomed pot, heat 2 tbsp olive oil and add the cherry tomatoes. Sprinkle some salt over it and cook with the lid covered. Once the tomatoes start to blister and soften, add chopped walnuts, crushed dry red chillies, cooked pasta and mix well. Switch off the flame and take the pot off the heat. 
3. Lastly, prepare the pesto sauce by first blending the walnuts, garlic, parmesan cheese and extra-virgin olive oil. Once fine, add in the basil leaves and squeeze of lemon juice and blend again without adding water. It should form a smooth, thick bright green paste. Note that the pesto sauce tends to discolor with time so avoid preparing it in advance. Prepare it when the pasta is almost done cooking.
4. Add the pesto sauce to the pot with the cooked pasta, cherry tomatoes and the rest of the ingredients and toss well (no need to switch on the flame as we do not want to cook the pesto). Add the reserved pasta water if needed and check the seasoning. 
5. Sprinkle the pasta with grated/shaved parmesan cheese and serve alongside garlic bread or a garden salad.

Notes:  

• I have tried this recipe with Vietnamese and Thai basil leaves which taste sharper (more pungent) than sweet Italian basil. I recommend you stick to Italian basil
• In addition to the cherry tomatoes, you can definitely incorporate other veggies into this pasta dish - zucchini, asparagus, broccoli, olives, sweet corn and bell peppers are some good options. Cook the veggies in order of their cooking times with a pinch of salt just as the recipe mentioned with the tomatoes and proceed from there
• Instead of walnuts, you can use pine nuts, pecans, cashews, almonds, macadamia nuts or hazelnuts as well
• Time the recipe in such a way that the pasta gets cooked around the same time as it is to be mixed in with the pesto sauce. This way the pasta is hot and absorbs the flavors from the sauce better and the pesto sauce retains its bright green color.
• Do not cook the pesto sauce. It is to be added at the very last and just mixed together with the rest of the ingredients
• Use whole wheat or brown rice pasta or quinoa pasta if you want to make this recipe more nutritious
• You can add one finely minced fresh bird's eye red chilli along with the cherry tomatoes while sautéing if you want a bit more fiery heat (that's the Indian in me talking 😆)
• This pasta dish tastes best when served immediately. Letting the pasta sit for prolonged periods and/or refrigeration dries it out and leads to a loss of flavor so I wouldn't recommend it as a dish that you could prepare in advance or serve as leftovers the next day. 

Cheers,

Megha