PESTO AND OTHER OIL-BASED SAUCES

OLIVE OIL-BASED SAUCES ARE QUICK TO prepare and generally ready in less time than it takes to bring water to a boil and cook pasta. Their flavor is very potent, whether it's the strong punch of basil in pesto sauce or the sautéed garlic in aglio e olio.

There are a few points to remember when making pesto, the most famous of all oil-based sauces. Traditionally, this pureed sauce is made in a mortar and pestle, which yields an especially silky texture and intense basil flavor. The slow pounding of the basil leaves (it takes fifteen minutes to make pesto this way) releases their full flavor.

By comparison, blender and food processor pestos can seem dull or bland. We prefer a food processor over the blender for several reasons. Ingredients tend to bunch up near the blender blade and do not become evenly chopped. Also, to keep solids moving in a blender, it is necessary to add more oil than is really needed to make pesto.

We tested various methods for releasing more of the basil and anise notes in leaves destined for the food processor, including chopping, tearing, and bruising them. In the end, we settled on packing basil leaves in a plastic bag and bruising them with a meat pounder or rolling pin.

The other main issue with pesto is taming the acrid, overpowering garlic flavor. We tested roasting, sautéing, and infusing oil with garlic flavor, but found all these methods lacking. However, blanching tames the harsh garlic notes and loosens its skin for easy peeling.

To bring out the full flavor of the nuts, toast them in a dry skillet before processing. Almonds are relatively sweet but are fairly hard, so they give pesto a coarse, granular texture. Walnuts are softer but still fairly meaty in texture and flavor. Pine nuts yield the smoothest, creamiest pesto.

Once basic basil pesto is mastered, other variations are possible. All of these sauces should be thinned with some pasta cooking water to facilitate good distribution throughout the pasta, soften flavors, and highlight creaminess.