I went to the Food Matters expo last year and along with various other discoveries food wise came across pistachio butter.  It was so good that I ordered a great big bucket of it the minute I got home.  So far, I’ve mainly used it either on toast or in brownies and cookies but last night I had a sudden yearning for pesto pasta but didn’t have any pine nuts so decided to try using the remainder of my pistachio butter.

Be warned – this is a really rich pesto.  It is though really good.  I used Greek basil, mainly because I had forgotten to water the normal basil in my kitchen so it was looking a little limp and sorry for itself and the Greek basil was outside looking robust and bushy.  I didn’t weigh anything so have used the American cup method for quantities, except for the cheese where I used an 80g tub!

Ingredients

1 cup Greek basil (stalks and all)

4 cloves black garlic

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 heaped tablespoon pistachio butter

80g Parmigiano Reggiano, grated

Method

Put all the ingredients in the food processor and blitz for about a minute until smooth.

I’ve spooned the leftovers into an ice cube tray and frozen it.