Arugula Pesto
We have a 3 ft by 6 ft patch of arugula growing in our garden and for the last two months I’ve been looking for ways to make use of it. By the way, arugula (a.k.a. rocket) grows like a weed and re-seeds itself every year. The bugs and snails don’t seem to touch it (they go for the lettuce instead). Clotilde of Chocolate and Zucchini is always a great source of inspiration and I remembered her intriguing recipe for Pesto de Roquette. I had heard that walnuts are good in pesto so I tried making the arugula pesto both ways – one with pine nuts and one with walnuts. I think the arugula pesto with walnuts is better. The strong, meaty flavor of the walnuts balances out the astringency of the arugula, a good blend of flavors. I’ve made pesto both with mortar and pestle and with a food processor. The food processor method is definitely easier but the mortar method produces larger pieces of the arugula (it could be that my mortar is too small for this task).
I prefer a mild garlic flavor that you can achieve by using roasted garlic. The 1/2 raw garlic clove is added for a little kicker. The first time I made this pesto it was with only raw garlic and it was a little overwhelmingly garlicy. Using roasted garlic is a great way to still have the garlic flavor but without the intensity.
