The Pesto Cookbook

April 15, 2018

Woodier (The Apple Cookbook) shows how easy it is to make pestos, purees, and pastes from big-flavor ingredients such as herbs, greens, cheeses, oils, garlic, and nuts. After a thorough introduction to methods, equipment, troubleshooting, and storage, the author brings together 49 recipes for "pestos" (the term is used broadly) and 67 recipes for cooking with pesto. Cooks of all skill levels can prepare classic Genovese pesto, arugula-parsley chimichurri, tomatillo-sunflower salsa verde, and other tasty condiments used in dishes such as late summer gazpacho, fresh green harissa with beans and cheese, and lobster tails poached in basil-cilantro oil with garlic. VERDICT Highly recommended for kitchen gardeners, CSA members, farmers' market frequenters, and anyone who considers pesto a pantry essential.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2018
Call it pesto, pistou, puree, paste, or even green sauce, this blend of green herbs and vegetable oil or butter enhances just about every other food it adorns. Americans first became familiar with pesto from its Genoese version: basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, and cheese, all pounded into a slurry. Modern cooks have mostly abandoned the old mortar and pestle in favor of a food processor, which empowers the cook to whirl up a batch of pesto in bare minutes, ready by the time a pot of pasta has been drained into a bowl. Woodier traces the evolution of pestos and their kin across the globe, from Europe to Africa to South America, instructing how to produce variations from all manner of leafy greens, myriad nuts, garlic, and onions. He demonstrates its use on fish, meats, and in stews and soups. Pestos not only dress pasta but also perfume quiches, biscuits, and even cookies.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)