Ingredients (for 2 – 4)
- a couple generous handfuls of fresh basil (or more!)
- 2 garlic cloves
- a handful of pine nuts
- Extra virigin olive oil, q. b. (“quanto pasta” or “ as much as you need”)
- salt q. b.
- caprino cheese, q.b. (or use your favorite grated cheese if you do not have a goat cheese made by Pino!)
- pasta – spaghetti or pasta of your choice (you can guess amount, considering that 1 lb is for 5 persons)
Wash basil, dry, then dice finely – and I use our treasured cradle knife for this, called mezzaluna ( “half-moon”) in Italian.
Add the two garlic cloves, chopped and dice with the basil. When basil and garlic cloves are diced quite a bit, add pine nuts and dice all. When pine nuts, garlic, basil are all finely-diced, add olive oil and a bit of salt (but…attenzione!…. the cheese you will use will be salty, too….).
Choose pasta you will use (I used the Umbrian strozzapreti, small twists of flour, water) and cook in generous amount of salted boiling water. While pasta is boiling, prepare the cheese you will use – can be grated or even diced into small pieces, as I preferred to do with Pino’s caprino.
Drain pasta and mix in the pesto mixture, setting aside some of the mixture to add after you stir in the cheese. Add diced cheese.
Add the remaining pesto sauce and serve.
