Need Help for botched pesto!!
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Need Help for botched pesto!!
| Sun, 12-31-2006 - 9:56pm |
Ugh. I just made some spinach pine nut pest from the "Everyday Italian" cookbook. I followed the recipe exactly, but it tastes awful. Too much spinach and lemon :( I guess it might be okay on top of a crusty baugette with lots of butter and even some marinara sauce and a TINY bit of that pesto. This should keep for about 2 days. I still have it in the food processor container in the fridge. Does anyone know of something I could add to the pesto to make it taste better or should I just chuck it??


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I don't know what happened, but if you don't want to waste it, try freezing it in ice cube trays then you can pop the frozen cubes in a ziploc baggie and use the pesto cubes to flavour sauces, rice, and soups....or maybe even to add to ricotta cheese when making a lasagna.
Is it too bitter? I heard that it's very difficult to get pine nuts that are not rancid and that it's better to use another type of nut instead. Also baby spinach leaves would be less bitter that the larger bagged ones. I have never used spinach to make pesto only fresh basil.
I hate that when i try a recipe and it's not to my liking! Bah!
Nathalie
I confess to total ignorance on this topic.
Hi,
I'm curious about the recipe, could you send it out? If you want to save it,
try making a new batch (two actually) by using half the prepared pesto as a base and
cutting it with parsley and more pinenuts. Did you toast the pinenuts by chance? If it
called for lemon zest, you may have added some of the lemon rind which will give a
bitterness to the pesto.
Another option, combine it with marinara sauce and cooked hearty pasta, like rotini.
The marinara will balance balance out the pesto. Add some sugar and red wine to balance
the flavors.
A third option: incorporate some garlic and olive oil, use the pesto as a marinade
for chicken,lamb or pork loin. If you do this, the pesto marinade can be left on the meat overnight in the fridge or an hour at room temp. It's important not to overmarinate the meat, it will cook the meat. Roast it off, it's flavors the meat well and gives it a nice crust.
Good luck. mj
Thanks guys! I really appreciate the advice. I definately can still use it for marinating or adding to other things. I tried to make sure that I didn't get the bitter part of the lemon when zesting, but I could have... The pine nuts looked and smelled fresh, but again I really have no experience to base it on so that could also be the problem. Here is the recipe for Chicken Breast with Pine Nut pesto. (I just made the pesto) Oh, and yes it is Giada De Laurentiis cookbook, "Everyday Italian". Everything else looked good, but the pesto was a huge pain in the @ss and I'll enjoy the other recipes more...
2 boneless chicken breasts
2 cups lightly packed baby spinach leaves (about 2 ounces)
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 to 2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan
Heat a grill pan on medium high heat. Lightly oil the grill pan. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper. Grill the chicken until cooked through, about 5 minutes per side.
Combine the spinach, pine nuts, lemon juice, and lemon peel in a processor. Lightly pulse. With the machine running, gradually add 1/3 cup of the oil, blending until the mixture is creamy. Add salt and pulse. Put half of the pesto into ice cube trays and store in the freezer for future use.
Transfer the rest of the spinach mixture to a medium bowl. Stir in the Parmesan. Season the pesto with salt and pepper, to taste.
Spread the pesto over each piece of chicken and serve.
Check out this site I use allot for recipe searches. Here are some Pesto Recpes at this url: http://www.familyoven.com/search.jsp?search_term=pesto.
It searches many sites and the ingredients link shows you what in each one with out clicking around.
hmm. I am slightly suspicious of spinach leaves for Pesto, they aren't quite that aromatic to make sense... usually I use basil (and sometimes stretch it with a handful of spinach...). In those cases, I would not add lemon... but I guess it is the recipe, and I may try it to see how it works - I can't imagine lemon with the pinenuts.
In my opinion, the ONLY nuts to use are pine nuts - they have a smokey taste that is unlike all others. Just check the sell-by date, or pick the package in an italian deli where they are likely to sell their stock!!! Anyway, pesto is always a pain to prepare - I love using it, but I prepare a large batch and freeze it. :) parsley or multiple herbs ones are also good... some years ago my mom wrote a BOOK with some hundreds of different pestos recipes picked from her friends and family - I should suggest her to create a blog with those recipe...
To salvage your lot, I think the suggestions you have are quite smart. If you decide to double the recipe, maybe it may help to prepare the second batch with parsley (that would go ok with the spinack and lemon), so you add flavour to it... :)) GOOD LUCK!!!
Thanks for the help, FV!!!
Let me know, I'll send a couple from my mom's book... she makes an awesome one with dry tomatoes... :))
KEWL!
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