Summary

Ingredients

• 100 basil leaves, as fresh as possible
• 3 tablespoon pine nuts
• 2 cloves garlic)
• 30 g butter, cold
• 75 g olive oil the very best quality
• 75 g parmesan, or peccorino, to taste or mixed, rated
• salt and pepper

Also:

• 250 g beans, reen, fresh
• 250 g potato (s), peeled
• 450 g pasta (Trenette) or linuine
• salt

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Instructions

1. Mash the pine nuts with the garlic in a mortar. Add the basil and butter and puree everything in the blender. Fold in the cheese and pour in the oil, then season with salt and pepper and mix well. Prepare everything very quickly and make sure that the basil is not yet blooming, then it would already be too old and that it does not get warm while mixing, as this would turn it dark.
2. Cut the potatoes into thin slices so that they cook the same time as the beans and pasta. It takes some experience. Cook all 3 ingredients in a large saucepan with salted water to the point. Just before draining, add a few tablespoons of cooking water to the pesto, pour this into a large bowl and mix the trenette with the potatoes and beans in it. Arrange immediately on plates and rub some pecorino or parmesan over them if you like.
3. The dish stands or falls with the quality of all the ingredients. As usual, it is served here as a Primo Piatto, not as a main course, and is a wonderful summer dish. There are over 50 different basil plants in the Mediterranean. If you can get the ones growing in Liguria, you should strike, or prepare a typical pesto while on vacation. Trenette are the typical pasta for pesto, also called linguine in other regions. They are similar to spaghetti, but not round, but oval, so a little wider.