Anyone who comes up to me to ask what I truly love to do, without doubt my answer is baking and cooking. Sounds so-no-a-studious-girl will do? Well, the main reason for why I have such a burning passion in culinary can be described in one word -- therapeutic. When I'm so engrossed in serving the finest dish that I can or just to whip up a satisfying quick meal, I'm able to fully concentrate on what I'm doing and temporarily forget what has been bothering me or stressing me out. In other works, I feel more relaxed when I'm in the kitchen haha. Unlike the professional chefs who have nerve-wrecking moments when they try to serve the best dish to their guests, I'm rolling in the kitchen to wind myself down.
After such a long long time, I finally found the enthusiasm to be back in the kitchen to take some time off the books and some problems. And also, I'm trying to clear all the leftover ingredients in the fridge before lunar new year. I'm feeling excited for it as this is the only time of the year that all families will gather for a scrumptious meal to catch up or to foster a stronger bond. While for me, on this festive season, I will share my passion with everyone, whether my family, relatives or my friends by baking cookies to spread some joy to them.
I came up with a pesto recipe. Yes, it's definitely one of my love! This is my second try on a pesto recipe and I will say preparing it from scratch is da best. In my recent trip to Cambodia, I had spaghetti with pesto at Angkor Watt. It costs a bomb because at such a tourist destination, there's no such thing as cheap and good food. But...I'm totally satisfied with the dish. The pesto is so fragrant and the spaghetti is soaked totally in the oil. When I said soaked, it really seems like the spaghetti is bathing in the pesto oil. That's the best part to be honest. I feel so guilty trying to have every mouthful of spaghetti thoroughly coated with pesto oil. The calories in that particular plate of spaghetti is insane.
Here, I came up with a to-keep pesto recipe. Adjust the amount of each ingredient to your liking.
For pesto sauce:
-Sage and basil
(This combination yields a perfect pesto sauce in my opinion as both are fragrant and not overpowering each other. Adding sage brings the sinfully addictive basil pesto to a whole new level. However, using basil is perfectly fine too.)
-Pine nuts and walnuts
(Adding pine nuts will do. I find pine nuts to be a better option than walnuts as it has a stronger nutty smell after roasting.)
- Olive oil
- Garlic cloves
Methods:
Pulse everything in a food blender and ta-daa, you'll have your very own pesto sauce to be served or to be refrigerated.
When you are to serve the spaghetti with the pesto sauce, chop some large shallots and mix it with the pesto sauce in a pan. Heat it without adding any olive oil in a non stick pan as a healthier option. Once you hear that sizzling sound and the garlic starts to turn brown, immediately place the spaghetti into the pan and give it a good toss. Add some salt for a more flavorful option. At this point, you can add more olive oil which elevates the fragrance of the dish, but I prefer to just add some water and mix the spaghetti well so that it's not too dry or too oily.
To counter the greasiness of the pesto sauce, I served it with marinated tomatoes, cucumber and some shredded carrot (basically anything that I can find from the fridge). Mix them with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, dried oregano, dried parsley and Worcestershire sauce. You will want to prepare this ahead to serve the salad chill and for the marinate to infuse into the salad. The zingy lemon juice definitely do a great job to balance up the dish.
