A mild yummy pesto made with macadamia nuts and Australian native spinach - Warrigal Greens.
This is a great all-round pesto perfect for your cheese plates, pasta salads and fancy sandwiches. Native spinach, or Warrigal Greens, grows beautifully at the beginning of summer. It’s a fantastic green to have in the garden. You can’t go too wrong with the quantities, the main thing to remember is to rinse and wring the greens out well as they hold a load of water. If you don't have Warrigal Greens at hand you can of course use spinach.
INGREDIENTS
- 4 big handfuls of fresh native spinach.
- ¾ cup fresh basil leaves.
- ½ parmesan cheese, shaved (nothing fancy).
- ½ cup macadamia nuts.
- 1 Tsp of The Good Salt (or salt flakes).
- 1 cup olive oil.
- The juice from ½ a lemon.
METHOD
Preparing the spinach:
- Blanch your leaves in a saucepan of boiling water for 1 minute (blanching them for a short time will keep the beautiful colour in the leaves).
- Strain the leaves and run under cold water.
- Squeeze the excess liquid from the leaves – this can take some muscle.
- Your spinach is ready to use.
Making the pesto:
- In a food processor add the spinach, basil, nuts, cheese and half the olive oil. Blitz for 30 seconds.
- Add salt and lemon juice slowly and slowly add remaining olive oil. Blitz to your desired texture – some like it chunky some like it smooth.
- Leave for 10 minutes and then taste. Adjust the seasoning and lemon juice to your liking.
When storing in the fridge make sure it has enough olive oil to keep the consistency.