Italian “pesto rosso” is a delicious variant of the famous pesto Genovese (basil pesto). In this case, the main ingredient is no longer basil but (dehydrated) sun-dried tomatoes. After grinding them together with the rest of the ingredients, you obtain a pesto that is perfect both for seasoning a short pasta and for spreading on bread or “bruschetta”.
Ingredients:
100 g sun-dried tomatoes
40 g of Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano cheese
A handful of pine nuts or peeled almonds
A handful of basil leaves.
A clove of garlic
Extra virgin olive oil, ground pepper
Optional:
100g ricotta
This pesto rosso recipe does not present any major difficulty, since all you have to do is blend all the ingredients until you obtain a homogeneous paste. Even so, we need to know a few details about the sun-dried tomatoes:
When using canned sun-dried tomatoes, make sure to always choose those in extra virgin olive oil. If, however, we have dry dehydrated tomatoes, we must first proceed to hydrate them. To do this, just boil them over moderate heat for 5 to 10 minutes, until they are tender.
Then run them through cold water to stop the cooking and lower their temperature. Then combine them in a mixer with the Parmigiano or Grana Padano cheese, the blanched almonds (or pine nuts), some basil leaves, a clove of garlic, a little extra virgin olive oil and pepper to taste. Blend until you obtain a paste with a fairly firm consistency. If the machine has difficulty grinding, it is likely that the mixture requires a little more extra virgin olive oil.
Sun-dried tomatoes may have a flavor that is too intense for some palates, so those who prefer a softer touch in this pesto rosso can choose to add a little ricotta to the mixture.
Suggestions to enjoy this pesto rosso:
This pesto is perfect for simply spreading it on a toast or bruschetta. But we can also season a pasta, just as we would with the traditional Genoese pesto.
To do this, preferably choose short pasta (in Genoa they usually use “trofie” with traditional pesto). Cook the pasta in salted water and two minutes before it is ready, strain it and transfer it to a pan, taking care to retain a little of the cooking water. Add a generous spoonful of pesto rosso per person to the pan, along with a little of the cooking water, and mix over high heat. In this way, the pasta will finish cooking while it is integrated with the pesto, which in turn will have the right consistency, thanks to the starch provided by the pasta cooking water.