any basil aficionados here? We grow tons of it, and we love making pesto, but I find that mine always comes out a little bitter. Please share any good recipes. Thanks!
Ingredients:
2 cups fresh basil leaves
4 garlic cloves
1 cup walnuts
1 cup quality olive oil
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated romano cheese
Salt and Pepper
Directions:
Combine garlic and walnuts in the bowl of a food processor and chop. Then add basil leaves and chop again. Leave the motor running and add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Shut the motor off, add the cheeses, a big pinch of salt and some pepper. Process again just to combine.
Ingredients:
2 cups fresh basil leaves
4 garlic cloves
1 cup walnuts
1 cup quality olive oil
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated romano cheese
Salt and Pepper
Directions:
Combine garlic and walnuts in the bowl of a food processor and chop. Then add basil leaves and chop again. Leave the motor running and add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Shut the motor off, add the cheeses, a big pinch of salt and some pepper. Process again just to combine.
Mine is similar, except I use pine nuts in place of the walnuts
Good recipe above and great tip from bill in Utah...
But beware that pesto made with walnuts rather than the classic pine nuts can and will turn a nasty brown color at it's surface, due to "PPO" enzymes (polyphenol oxidase).
To limit or prevent this browning, and IMO it also improves the flavor of pesto significantly, brown the nut moiety first in an oven or (my favorite and faster way now) in a microwave. But be careful when browning nuts in a microwave! They need to be checked and stirred frequently to prevent burning.
For my taste (and I have experimented with walnuts, slivered almonds, and whole hazelnuts) the best replacement nuts for pine nuts to save $$$ is hazelnuts. Then blanched slivered almonds, and only lastly walnuts.
Also I like to add some fresh squeezed lemon juice to my pesto to make it brighter and "lighter" tasting. The strained juice of half a medium sized lemon should work well with the above proportions of 2 cups fresh basil leaves. Lemon juice also helps prevent the browning.
Another tip is that you don't need to be too nudnicky when stripping the basil leaves from the stems. Fine thin stems won't affect the flavor or texture at all if you are making the pesto in a blender or food processor. I always use a food proceesor.
Best fresh evoo you can get your hands on too, but various evoos from Trader Joe's are plenty good enough. I tend to like the fruity almond scented evoo TJ's imports from Spain, probably made from Arbequina green olives.
I put all my pesto into old jam jars and top with a very thin layer of evoo and refrigerate overnight, then freeze all but the one I will keep in the fridge. Pesto freezes very well. I make as much as I can at one time, typically 8 "bunches" of fresh basil at once in my processor, with 8-12 cloves of garlic... Bunches of basil tend to be smallish in Israel, certainly less than 1 full well packed cup of leaves each.
Did I miss anything? Pine nuts really are the best, but wholly mama are they pricey nowadays, and not always found fresh enough.
best pesto dish I ever ate was in a little restaurant on the coast of Italy, not too far from Genoa (naturally), a pesto "lasagne."
Two rectangles of fresh home made lasagne noodles with thin layers of pesto spread in the middle and on top. Heavenly!
Fresh pesto on good quality dried egg noodles is excellent, on fresh home made egg noodles, divine. I like Marcella Hazan's fresh egg noodle recipe - only durum semolina flour, fresh eggs, and a pinch of salt. Richard Olney recommends using slightly more egg yolks rather than simply whole fresh eggs. Never tried that honestly, but easy to imagine it would make a more suave and rich noodle dough.
First, and most likely: if you let your basil flower (go to seed), the leaves can become very bitter. Trim the basil tops back next time before this happens.
Second: adding olive oil to a food processor or blender breaks down the oil and can release suspended bitter compounds. Process the other pesto ingredients first, but stir in the oil by hand.
AFter years of buying the shit sold at grocery stores, and reading an article that claimed 90% of the EVOO sold in America is not really EVOO, I started buying California Olive Ranch Arbosana EVOO on Amazon.
The taste difference between the actual real stuff, and the sham they sell at grocery stores is startling.
First, and most likely: if you let your basil flower (go to seed), the leaves can become very bitter. Trim the basil tops back next time before this happens.
Second: adding olive oil to a food processor or blender breaks down the oil and can release suspended bitter compounds. Process the other pesto ingredients first, but stir in the oil by hand.
is important as well. I use pecorino but a similar Italian sharp cheese will work. Even better if you get it from an Italian market or deli freshly grated.
Before you add the herbs to the vitamix or food processor - rough them up in your hands or use a rolling pin or something. Just like the muddler with a Mojito, you first have to crush the leaves to release the flavor
If you have a Costco membership, the pinenuts and the pecorino romano they have in bulk are fantastic to have around. Their EVOO is also all I buy anymore. One of the few bulk oils that actually is EVOO.
I have made pesto in the vita mix a lot you just have to have olive oil ready to pour in as it's running. Also if it's coming out to better you can always put in a little bit of honey - not too much though.
That should do it.
Ingredients:
Basil
Pine nuts
Garlic
P. Romano cheese
EVOO
HOney
SP to taste
AFter years of buying the shit sold at grocery stores, and reading an article that claimed 90% of the EVOO sold in America is not really EVOO, I started buying California Olive Ranch Arbosana EVOO on Amazon.
The taste difference between the actual real stuff, and the sham they sell at grocery stores is startling.
After traveling multiple times to Europe and getting authentic Spanish olive oil - just like good coffee beans - The stuff they export is not the best, they keep that for themselves ;) Good olive oil should not be cheap - and you should be able to taste it like a fine wine. If you have one of those good olive oil stores near you, I highly suggest a tasting and buying a bottle of their finest
First, and most likely: if you let your basil flower (go to seed), the leaves can become very bitter. Trim the basil tops back next time before this happens.
Second: adding olive oil to a food processor or blender breaks down the oil and can release suspended bitter compounds. Process the other pesto ingredients first, but stir in the oil by hand.
This is an interesting post. Frankly, having a chef's background and still having the habit to make large batches of almost anything I make, and certainly pesto where I make as much as I can stuff into my food processor at once, typically 4-5 340 gram sized jam jars' full, I never even considered if blending EVOO in a FP or blender releases bitterness.
I have been making pesto for almost 40 years exclusively with mechanical grinding action, and also years ago when working in a French style restaurant made real mayonnaise (EVOO based) in food processors rather than whisking by hand, and NEVER noticed untoward bitterness being "released" by the mechanical action of the FP blades.
So I searched the web for info about pesto production and bitterness, and then searched for information about the polyphenols themselves, their relative amounts in various cultivar specific olive oils, and the comparative bitterness of those oils and if it could be tied to specific polyphenols that are present in different cultivars of olives at significantly different concentrations.
The first part of my search unveiled a couple of discussions about what method makes "the best" pesto and what contributes to increased bitterness in pesto. Only two sources (I admit I didn't dig deeper than the first page of my Google search for any information I sought) claimed that pesto is better and less bitter when made by the protocol of using the FP to grind everything except the grated cheese and EVOO in the FP and then stirring in those two ingredients by hand. One of those two claimed that making pesto in a mortar and pestle produced the best and "silkiest" results with also slightly (but barely noticeable) less bitterness. Both claimed that using the FP to grind pesto causes "damage to the EVOO". One of those, the more quasi-scientific one, claimed that the polyphenols in EVOO are "held in suspension" by the fat (lipids) which are in fact the essence and solvent basis of EVOO.
Well I can tell you this much - that's bullshit, chemically. All the polyphenols in EVOO are actually dissolved in the lipid solvent, they sure as shit aren't "suspended" like colloidal entities are in solutions. Polyphenols are soluble in lipid solvents.
From that point of view, claiming that mechanical blending action will release bitter flavored compound that are normally hidden in EVOO by driving them "out of suspension" is baloney. It's equivalent to suggesting that mixing a Tequila Sunrise (how's that for dating myself) in a blender would drive the sugar out of the Grenadine syrup and make the drink taste more sweet.
That for me explains why I have never in 40 years of making pesto, mayonnaise, olive oil rich tomato sauces, or occasionally a batch of tapenade (olive, anchovy, and garlic paste) with mechanical blending made the result more bitter than could be explained simply by the starting ingredients; it doesn't.
The fact is different olive oils made from single cultivar olives DO HAVE rather widely ranging levels of bitterness and this (while also a function of processing, genuine top quality first press's cold press evoo has MORE polyphenols and are therefore naturally more bitter, and pungent) there is a large range in how bitter or pungent or mild an EVOO is. A good part of that is simply the olives used (by cultivar) and how ripe the olives were picked to make the oil. Green olives have more polyphenols than brown, purple, black very ripe olives do.
I mentioned Arbequina based single olive CV oils above as among my favorites for EVOO and pesto? Guess what? Arbequina olives, which are most prolific in Spain and becoming more and more widely planted in Israel, are both lower in total polyphenols and extremely lower in the specific polyphenol which has the most aggressive hot bitter and pungent character. This specific polyphenol was found, in a very good scientific assay in an article published IIRC in Food Science, to be THE ONLY POLYPHENOL among several (many?) isolated from various EVOOS to cause the " burning at the back of the throat" sensation found in most EVOO. (But detected at widely differing levels.)
Two different single cultivar EVOOs I buy in Israel (from the same producer) show this quite clearly: their Arbequina oil is milder and fruitier and makes for my taste the best pesto and best salad dressing. Their Suri olive EVOO has a whopping burning aftertaste and a slightly more viscous texture, and is better for cooking and in cooked salads like ratatouille or caponata. In fact it oxidizes less easily (stands up to heating better) because of its elevated polyphenols.
Jim's other point about the basil I think has validity. I have for years when living in CA noticed that "early season" Spring Basil makes the best pesto and Fall basil with bigger, huskier leaves makes a less aromatic and more bitter pesto.
Harder to judge that in Israel as very little basil on the commercial market is grown outdoors because of our climate it flowers and goes to seed to quickly. So virtually all the basil is grown indoors hydroponically, and only rarely does one find it flowering at all. But I think smaller, mre delicate leaves of basil, younger leaves, are less bitter than older ones.
Nothing like BBI for finding utter BS pronounced with authority, definitely!
Bullshit. Walnuts have tons more bitter chemicals -polyphenols again - than pine nuts.
Not saying you can't make good pesto with walnuts (I like bitter flavors more than many people, can eat a green salad made mostly from arrugula leaves, love fresh radishes and even blanched radish greens).
than pine nuts but not the cause of bitter pesto. If I were the poster, I would make it without nuts to see if it is the basil or not and also add the butter. Later in the summer, basil can get bitter especially if grown by a novice in the backyard but also store bought.
First, and most likely: if you let your basil flower (go to seed), the leaves can become very bitter. Trim the basil tops back next time before this happens.
Second: adding olive oil to a food processor or blender breaks down the oil and can release suspended bitter compounds. Process the other pesto ingredients first, but stir in the oil by hand.
This is an interesting post. Frankly, having a chef's background and still having the habit to make large batches of almost anything I make, and certainly pesto where I make as much as I can stuff into my food processor at once, typically 4-5 340 gram sized jam jars' full, I never even considered if blending EVOO in a FP or blender releases bitterness.
I have been making pesto for almost 40 years exclusively with mechanical grinding action, and also years ago when working in a French style restaurant made real mayonnaise (EVOO based) in food processors rather than whisking by hand, and NEVER noticed untoward bitterness being "released" by the mechanical action of the FP blades.
So I searched the web for info about pesto production and bitterness, and then searched for information about the polyphenols themselves, their relative amounts in various cultivar specific olive oils, and the comparative bitterness of those oils and if it could be tied to specific polyphenols that are present in different cultivars of olives at significantly different concentrations.
The first part of my search unveiled a couple of discussions about what method makes "the best" pesto and what contributes to increased bitterness in pesto. Only two sources (I admit I didn't dig deeper than the first page of my Google search for any information I sought) claimed that pesto is better and less bitter when made by the protocol of using the FP to grind everything except the grated cheese and EVOO in the FP and then stirring in those two ingredients by hand. One of those two claimed that making pesto in a mortar and pestle produced the best and "silkiest" results with also slightly (but barely noticeable) less bitterness. Both claimed that using the FP to grind pesto causes "damage to the EVOO". One of those, the more quasi-scientific one, claimed that the polyphenols in EVOO are "held in suspension" by the fat (lipids) which are in fact the essence and solvent basis of EVOO.
Well I can tell you this much - that's bullshit, chemically. All the polyphenols in EVOO are actually dissolved in the lipid solvent, they sure as shit aren't "suspended" like colloidal entities are in solutions. Polyphenols are soluble in lipid solvents.
From that point of view, claiming that mechanical blending action will release bitter flavored compound that are normally hidden in EVOO by driving them "out of suspension" is baloney. It's equivalent to suggesting that mixing a Tequila Sunrise (how's that for dating myself) in a blender would drive the sugar out of the Grenadine syrup and make the drink taste more sweet.
That for me explains why I have never in 40 years of making pesto, mayonnaise, olive oil rich tomato sauces, or occasionally a batch of tapenade (olive, anchovy, and garlic paste) with mechanical blending made the result more bitter than could be explained simply by the starting ingredients; it doesn't.
The fact is different olive oils made from single cultivar olives DO HAVE rather widely ranging levels of bitterness and this (while also a function of processing, genuine top quality first press's cold press evoo has MORE polyphenols and are therefore naturally more bitter, and pungent) there is a large range in how bitter or pungent or mild an EVOO is. A good part of that is simply the olives used (by cultivar) and how ripe the olives were picked to make the oil. Green olives have more polyphenols than brown, purple, black very ripe olives do.
I mentioned Arbequina based single olive CV oils above as among my favorites for EVOO and pesto? Guess what? Arbequina olives, which are most prolific in Spain and becoming more and more widely planted in Israel, are both lower in total polyphenols and extremely lower in the specific polyphenol which has the most aggressive hot bitter and pungent character. This specific polyphenol was found, in a very good scientific assay in an article published IIRC in Food Science, to be THE ONLY POLYPHENOL among several (many?) isolated from various EVOOS to cause the " burning at the back of the throat" sensation found in most EVOO. (But detected at widely differing levels.)
Two different single cultivar EVOOs I buy in Israel (from the same producer) show this quite clearly: their Arbequina oil is milder and fruitier and makes for my taste the best pesto and best salad dressing. Their Suri olive EVOO has a whopping burning aftertaste and a slightly more viscous texture, and is better for cooking and in cooked salads like ratatouille or caponata. In fact it oxidizes less easily (stands up to heating better) because of its elevated polyphenols.
Jim's other point about the basil I think has validity. I have for years when living in CA noticed that "early season" Spring Basil makes the best pesto and Fall basil with bigger, huskier leaves makes a less aromatic and more bitter pesto.
Harder to judge that in Israel as very little basil on the commercial market is grown outdoors because of our climate it flowers and goes to seed to quickly. So virtually all the basil is grown indoors hydroponically, and only rarely does one find it flowering at all. But I think smaller, mre delicate leaves of basil, younger leaves, are less bitter than older ones.
But if you cook for one (or two) you can pour the pesto into an ice cube tray and freeze it. That way you can thaw one or two cubes to only thaw out what you need. It allows you to make a large batch and not waste any.
Also good if you have young kids and you make different meals for the adults and the kids. Kids get pasta with butter, adults get pasta with pesto.
Re growing the basil yourself, frequent irrigation helps hold back the flowering, as of course does the frequent pinching back.
I have to wash my basil otherwise I will have fine sandy dust in it, such is the nature of the air in Israel, that even hothouse enclosed hydroponic herbs will be coated in this dust. I wash twice, and ALWAYS spin the leaves dry very well in a salad spinner.
If you incorporate too much water into the pesto, then maybe the theory of blending in an FP might release more bitterness from the EVOO or some other component, by extracting the polyphenols into the aqueous part of the pesto...
Reading up on olive oil production mentioned that the polyphenol content of the finished oil is lower in oils produced via hot water extraction methods because the compounds can migrate into the aqueous moiety. Which in the case of olive oil is of course discarded. But in your pesto it's still there.
2 1/2 cups basil leaves
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons pine nuts (raw)
1/4 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano (freshly grated)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
Don't add water or toast the pine nuts. Don't make it too far in advance or in big batches to keep in your fridge. That's not what pesto is about. The brightness of the herbs dissipates quickly. Make it, use it, eat it.
Ingredients:
2 cups fresh basil leaves
4 garlic cloves
1 cup walnuts
1 cup quality olive oil
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated romano cheese
Salt and Pepper
Directions:
Combine garlic and walnuts in the bowl of a food processor and chop. Then add basil leaves and chop again. Leave the motor running and add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Shut the motor off, add the cheeses, a big pinch of salt and some pepper. Process again just to combine.
Ingredients:
2 cups fresh basil leaves
4 garlic cloves
1 cup walnuts
1 cup quality olive oil
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated romano cheese
Salt and Pepper
Directions:
Combine garlic and walnuts in the bowl of a food processor and chop. Then add basil leaves and chop again. Leave the motor running and add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Shut the motor off, add the cheeses, a big pinch of salt and some pepper. Process again just to combine.
To limit or prevent this browning, and IMO it also improves the flavor of pesto significantly, brown the nut moiety first in an oven or (my favorite and faster way now) in a microwave. But be careful when browning nuts in a microwave! They need to be checked and stirred frequently to prevent burning.
For my taste (and I have experimented with walnuts, slivered almonds, and whole hazelnuts) the best replacement nuts for pine nuts to save $$$ is hazelnuts. Then blanched slivered almonds, and only lastly walnuts.
Also I like to add some fresh squeezed lemon juice to my pesto to make it brighter and "lighter" tasting. The strained juice of half a medium sized lemon should work well with the above proportions of 2 cups fresh basil leaves. Lemon juice also helps prevent the browning.
Another tip is that you don't need to be too nudnicky when stripping the basil leaves from the stems. Fine thin stems won't affect the flavor or texture at all if you are making the pesto in a blender or food processor. I always use a food proceesor.
Best fresh evoo you can get your hands on too, but various evoos from Trader Joe's are plenty good enough. I tend to like the fruity almond scented evoo TJ's imports from Spain, probably made from Arbequina green olives.
I put all my pesto into old jam jars and top with a very thin layer of evoo and refrigerate overnight, then freeze all but the one I will keep in the fridge. Pesto freezes very well. I make as much as I can at one time, typically 8 "bunches" of fresh basil at once in my processor, with 8-12 cloves of garlic... Bunches of basil tend to be smallish in Israel, certainly less than 1 full well packed cup of leaves each.
Did I miss anything? Pine nuts really are the best, but wholly mama are they pricey nowadays, and not always found fresh enough.
Two rectangles of fresh home made lasagne noodles with thin layers of pesto spread in the middle and on top. Heavenly!
Fresh pesto on good quality dried egg noodles is excellent, on fresh home made egg noodles, divine. I like Marcella Hazan's fresh egg noodle recipe - only durum semolina flour, fresh eggs, and a pinch of salt. Richard Olney recommends using slightly more egg yolks rather than simply whole fresh eggs. Never tried that honestly, but easy to imagine it would make a more suave and rich noodle dough.
Second: adding olive oil to a food processor or blender breaks down the oil and can release suspended bitter compounds. Process the other pesto ingredients first, but stir in the oil by hand.
The taste difference between the actual real stuff, and the sham they sell at grocery stores is startling.
Second: adding olive oil to a food processor or blender breaks down the oil and can release suspended bitter compounds. Process the other pesto ingredients first, but stir in the oil by hand.
Interesting thanks
This. Walnuts are adding to the bitterness if u use them as opposed to pine nuts
Link - ( New Window )
If you have a Costco membership, the pinenuts and the pecorino romano they have in bulk are fantastic to have around. Their EVOO is also all I buy anymore. One of the few bulk oils that actually is EVOO.
I have made pesto in the vita mix a lot you just have to have olive oil ready to pour in as it's running. Also if it's coming out to better you can always put in a little bit of honey - not too much though.
That should do it.
Ingredients:
Basil
Pine nuts
Garlic
P. Romano cheese
EVOO
HOney
SP to taste
The taste difference between the actual real stuff, and the sham they sell at grocery stores is startling.
After traveling multiple times to Europe and getting authentic Spanish olive oil - just like good coffee beans - The stuff they export is not the best, they keep that for themselves ;) Good olive oil should not be cheap - and you should be able to taste it like a fine wine. If you have one of those good olive oil stores near you, I highly suggest a tasting and buying a bottle of their finest
Blanching sets its color.
Very well could be, but Moondawg never said he uses walnuts and most recipes call for pine nuts
Quote:
the skin in the walnuts.
Very well could be, but Moondawg never said he uses walnuts and most recipes call for pine nuts
I've done both and had some bitterness each time, so it could be worse with walnuts, but I'm not sure if it's just them.
Quote:
the skin in the walnuts.
Very well could be, but Moondawg never said he uses walnuts and most recipes call for pine nuts
You're right. I combined 2 posts while reading the entire thread before responding.
You can completely avoid this by blending all the ingredients except the cheese and olive oil until it's a paste and then mixing them in after.
I think using mortar and pestle makes the freshest tasting pesto as well.
Pine nuts and almonds are my nuts of choice.
Sometimes a little fresh baby arugula adds a nice bitterness/peppery-ness to the mix (not the sour bitterness you get from blended olive oil).
So start with veggie oil and then add some EVOO at the end...
Second: adding olive oil to a food processor or blender breaks down the oil and can release suspended bitter compounds. Process the other pesto ingredients first, but stir in the oil by hand.
This is an interesting post. Frankly, having a chef's background and still having the habit to make large batches of almost anything I make, and certainly pesto where I make as much as I can stuff into my food processor at once, typically 4-5 340 gram sized jam jars' full, I never even considered if blending EVOO in a FP or blender releases bitterness.
I have been making pesto for almost 40 years exclusively with mechanical grinding action, and also years ago when working in a French style restaurant made real mayonnaise (EVOO based) in food processors rather than whisking by hand, and NEVER noticed untoward bitterness being "released" by the mechanical action of the FP blades.
So I searched the web for info about pesto production and bitterness, and then searched for information about the polyphenols themselves, their relative amounts in various cultivar specific olive oils, and the comparative bitterness of those oils and if it could be tied to specific polyphenols that are present in different cultivars of olives at significantly different concentrations.
The first part of my search unveiled a couple of discussions about what method makes "the best" pesto and what contributes to increased bitterness in pesto. Only two sources (I admit I didn't dig deeper than the first page of my Google search for any information I sought) claimed that pesto is better and less bitter when made by the protocol of using the FP to grind everything except the grated cheese and EVOO in the FP and then stirring in those two ingredients by hand. One of those two claimed that making pesto in a mortar and pestle produced the best and "silkiest" results with also slightly (but barely noticeable) less bitterness. Both claimed that using the FP to grind pesto causes "damage to the EVOO". One of those, the more quasi-scientific one, claimed that the polyphenols in EVOO are "held in suspension" by the fat (lipids) which are in fact the essence and solvent basis of EVOO.
Well I can tell you this much - that's bullshit, chemically. All the polyphenols in EVOO are actually dissolved in the lipid solvent, they sure as shit aren't "suspended" like colloidal entities are in solutions. Polyphenols are soluble in lipid solvents.
From that point of view, claiming that mechanical blending action will release bitter flavored compound that are normally hidden in EVOO by driving them "out of suspension" is baloney. It's equivalent to suggesting that mixing a Tequila Sunrise (how's that for dating myself) in a blender would drive the sugar out of the Grenadine syrup and make the drink taste more sweet.
That for me explains why I have never in 40 years of making pesto, mayonnaise, olive oil rich tomato sauces, or occasionally a batch of tapenade (olive, anchovy, and garlic paste) with mechanical blending made the result more bitter than could be explained simply by the starting ingredients; it doesn't.
The fact is different olive oils made from single cultivar olives DO HAVE rather widely ranging levels of bitterness and this (while also a function of processing, genuine top quality first press's cold press evoo has MORE polyphenols and are therefore naturally more bitter, and pungent) there is a large range in how bitter or pungent or mild an EVOO is. A good part of that is simply the olives used (by cultivar) and how ripe the olives were picked to make the oil. Green olives have more polyphenols than brown, purple, black very ripe olives do.
I mentioned Arbequina based single olive CV oils above as among my favorites for EVOO and pesto? Guess what? Arbequina olives, which are most prolific in Spain and becoming more and more widely planted in Israel, are both lower in total polyphenols and extremely lower in the specific polyphenol which has the most aggressive hot bitter and pungent character. This specific polyphenol was found, in a very good scientific assay in an article published IIRC in Food Science, to be THE ONLY POLYPHENOL among several (many?) isolated from various EVOOS to cause the " burning at the back of the throat" sensation found in most EVOO. (But detected at widely differing levels.)
Two different single cultivar EVOOs I buy in Israel (from the same producer) show this quite clearly: their Arbequina oil is milder and fruitier and makes for my taste the best pesto and best salad dressing. Their Suri olive EVOO has a whopping burning aftertaste and a slightly more viscous texture, and is better for cooking and in cooked salads like ratatouille or caponata. In fact it oxidizes less easily (stands up to heating better) because of its elevated polyphenols.
Jim's other point about the basil I think has validity. I have for years when living in CA noticed that "early season" Spring Basil makes the best pesto and Fall basil with bigger, huskier leaves makes a less aromatic and more bitter pesto.
Harder to judge that in Israel as very little basil on the commercial market is grown outdoors because of our climate it flowers and goes to seed to quickly. So virtually all the basil is grown indoors hydroponically, and only rarely does one find it flowering at all. But I think smaller, mre delicate leaves of basil, younger leaves, are less bitter than older ones.
Nothing like BBI for finding utter BS pronounced with authority, definitely!
Bullshit. Walnuts have tons more bitter chemicals -polyphenols again - than pine nuts.
Not saying you can't make good pesto with walnuts (I like bitter flavors more than many people, can eat a green salad made mostly from arrugula leaves, love fresh radishes and even blanched radish greens).
But walnuts are way more bitter than pine nuts.
Quote:
First, and most likely: if you let your basil flower (go to seed), the leaves can become very bitter. Trim the basil tops back next time before this happens.
Second: adding olive oil to a food processor or blender breaks down the oil and can release suspended bitter compounds. Process the other pesto ingredients first, but stir in the oil by hand.
This is an interesting post. Frankly, having a chef's background and still having the habit to make large batches of almost anything I make, and certainly pesto where I make as much as I can stuff into my food processor at once, typically 4-5 340 gram sized jam jars' full, I never even considered if blending EVOO in a FP or blender releases bitterness.
I have been making pesto for almost 40 years exclusively with mechanical grinding action, and also years ago when working in a French style restaurant made real mayonnaise (EVOO based) in food processors rather than whisking by hand, and NEVER noticed untoward bitterness being "released" by the mechanical action of the FP blades.
So I searched the web for info about pesto production and bitterness, and then searched for information about the polyphenols themselves, their relative amounts in various cultivar specific olive oils, and the comparative bitterness of those oils and if it could be tied to specific polyphenols that are present in different cultivars of olives at significantly different concentrations.
The first part of my search unveiled a couple of discussions about what method makes "the best" pesto and what contributes to increased bitterness in pesto. Only two sources (I admit I didn't dig deeper than the first page of my Google search for any information I sought) claimed that pesto is better and less bitter when made by the protocol of using the FP to grind everything except the grated cheese and EVOO in the FP and then stirring in those two ingredients by hand. One of those two claimed that making pesto in a mortar and pestle produced the best and "silkiest" results with also slightly (but barely noticeable) less bitterness. Both claimed that using the FP to grind pesto causes "damage to the EVOO". One of those, the more quasi-scientific one, claimed that the polyphenols in EVOO are "held in suspension" by the fat (lipids) which are in fact the essence and solvent basis of EVOO.
Well I can tell you this much - that's bullshit, chemically. All the polyphenols in EVOO are actually dissolved in the lipid solvent, they sure as shit aren't "suspended" like colloidal entities are in solutions. Polyphenols are soluble in lipid solvents.
From that point of view, claiming that mechanical blending action will release bitter flavored compound that are normally hidden in EVOO by driving them "out of suspension" is baloney. It's equivalent to suggesting that mixing a Tequila Sunrise (how's that for dating myself) in a blender would drive the sugar out of the Grenadine syrup and make the drink taste more sweet.
That for me explains why I have never in 40 years of making pesto, mayonnaise, olive oil rich tomato sauces, or occasionally a batch of tapenade (olive, anchovy, and garlic paste) with mechanical blending made the result more bitter than could be explained simply by the starting ingredients; it doesn't.
The fact is different olive oils made from single cultivar olives DO HAVE rather widely ranging levels of bitterness and this (while also a function of processing, genuine top quality first press's cold press evoo has MORE polyphenols and are therefore naturally more bitter, and pungent) there is a large range in how bitter or pungent or mild an EVOO is. A good part of that is simply the olives used (by cultivar) and how ripe the olives were picked to make the oil. Green olives have more polyphenols than brown, purple, black very ripe olives do.
I mentioned Arbequina based single olive CV oils above as among my favorites for EVOO and pesto? Guess what? Arbequina olives, which are most prolific in Spain and becoming more and more widely planted in Israel, are both lower in total polyphenols and extremely lower in the specific polyphenol which has the most aggressive hot bitter and pungent character. This specific polyphenol was found, in a very good scientific assay in an article published IIRC in Food Science, to be THE ONLY POLYPHENOL among several (many?) isolated from various EVOOS to cause the " burning at the back of the throat" sensation found in most EVOO. (But detected at widely differing levels.)
Two different single cultivar EVOOs I buy in Israel (from the same producer) show this quite clearly: their Arbequina oil is milder and fruitier and makes for my taste the best pesto and best salad dressing. Their Suri olive EVOO has a whopping burning aftertaste and a slightly more viscous texture, and is better for cooking and in cooked salads like ratatouille or caponata. In fact it oxidizes less easily (stands up to heating better) because of its elevated polyphenols.
Jim's other point about the basil I think has validity. I have for years when living in CA noticed that "early season" Spring Basil makes the best pesto and Fall basil with bigger, huskier leaves makes a less aromatic and more bitter pesto.
Harder to judge that in Israel as very little basil on the commercial market is grown outdoors because of our climate it flowers and goes to seed to quickly. So virtually all the basil is grown indoors hydroponically, and only rarely does one find it flowering at all. But I think smaller, mre delicate leaves of basil, younger leaves, are less bitter than older ones.
Helpful stuff, Lou. Thanks.
Also good if you have young kids and you make different meals for the adults and the kids. Kids get pasta with butter, adults get pasta with pesto.
I have to wash my basil otherwise I will have fine sandy dust in it, such is the nature of the air in Israel, that even hothouse enclosed hydroponic herbs will be coated in this dust. I wash twice, and ALWAYS spin the leaves dry very well in a salad spinner.
If you incorporate too much water into the pesto, then maybe the theory of blending in an FP might release more bitterness from the EVOO or some other component, by extracting the polyphenols into the aqueous part of the pesto...
Reading up on olive oil production mentioned that the polyphenol content of the finished oil is lower in oils produced via hot water extraction methods because the compounds can migrate into the aqueous moiety. Which in the case of olive oil is of course discarded. But in your pesto it's still there.
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons pine nuts (raw)
1/4 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano (freshly grated)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
Don't add water or toast the pine nuts. Don't make it too far in advance or in big batches to keep in your fridge. That's not what pesto is about. The brightness of the herbs dissipates quickly. Make it, use it, eat it.