pesto pasta — Italy

Pesto pasta is a pasta dish dressed with pesto, an uncooked sauce of basil pounded with pine nuts, garlic, hard cheese and olive oil, associated with the cooking of Liguria in northern Italy, where the sauce originates. It is reported across Italy and well beyond it, served in households and restaurants alike, most closely tied to Genoa and the surrounding coast, where basil grown locally is considered especially suited to the sauce. To prepare it, basil leaves are pounded or blended with garlic, pine nuts, salt and grated hard cheese, loosened with olive oil into a thick, spoonable paste. Pasta is boiled until tender, a little of its starchy cooking water is stirred into the pesto to loosen it further, and the sauce is then folded through the drained pasta off the heat so it stays bright and uncooked. What distinguishes one version of pesto pasta from another is mainly the pasta shape — short twisted shapes and long ribbons are both common — along with the ratio of pine nuts to cheese and the amount of garlic, which cooks adjust according to taste and to how strong they want the basil flavor to come through.