busiate with Trapanese pesto — Italy

Busiate with Trapanese pesto brings together a twisted short pasta, shaped by hand around a thin rod, and a raw sauce built from tomatoes, almonds, garlic and basil. Unlike many pesto styles, this one is not cooked; it is pounded or blended cold and only meets heat when the drained pasta is tossed through it, which keeps the tomatoes fresh and the basil bright. This version is reported from the western tip of Sicily, around Trapani, a region long known for its salt pans, almond orchards and Mediterranean trade. Commentators often point to centuries of exchange across the Mediterranean, including with North Africa, as one reason almonds and coarse-textured pastas feature so heavily in the area's cooking, though the exact path any single dish took is rarely documented in detail. To prepare it, almonds are lightly toasted then blended with peeled garlic, ripe tomatoes, a generous handful of basil and olive oil until the mixture forms a coarse, spoonable paste, seasoned with salt. The busiate is boiled in well-salted water until firm to the bite, drained while still moist, and tossed directly with the pesto, loosened if needed with a little of the starchy cooking water. A scattering of grated pecorino or a similar hard sheep's cheese finishes the dish. What sets this plate apart from other Sicilian and southern Italian pestos is the presence of both tomato and almond in the same base, and the fact that the pasta itself is hand-shaped rather than extruded, giving it a rough surface that holds the sauce. Neighbouring towns and family kitchens vary the ratio of almonds to tomatoes, and some add a little chilli, without any one balance being set apart from the rest.