timidchef wrote:I never store my pesto in the freezer or refrigerator. I took Guiliano Bugialli notes and store under an inch of olive oil in my pantry (cool and dark all year). I have three types, the difference is in the nuts used: pine, English walnuts or black walnuts. Each gives a different flavor profile. Using different cheeses in the final mix is also good, pecorino, romano and parmigiano, or just use some soft butter.
t.,
If the idea is to store the pesto for any appreciable length of time in the pantry, the concern regarding botulism which mhill95149 expresses above strikes me as well founded, though there are those who store pesto in a jar, covered with oil, in a dark, cool pantry. Whether the bit of salt that one uses in making pesto is sufficient to inhibit any growth of potentially lethal microbes, I do not know –– perhaps so and that's how people are able to store pesto in this manner without dying from botulism.
As I've said in a thread I started on pesto a couple of years ago...
http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=41428#41428
...I'm a traditionalist and am inclined to make pesto fresh as I need it, throughout the long season that basil is available from my own garden. If one pines for it out of the natural, local basil season, that's hardly a problem anymore, since fresh basil is available any time of year these days. Even if the quality of the basil in winter is not as good as it is in summer (and especially early summer), I still find freshly prepared pesto more appealing than pesto that has been frozen or jarred for long-term storage. If one grows basil and has a lot of it that one wants to store for winter use, I would store the basil on its own, not in pesto.
One last note: you mention
pecorino and
romano as if they are different cheeses and that is not accurate. Sheeps' milk cheeses of the sort that are called
pecorino are made in various parts of Italy and those that are made in Lazio, near Rome, are called
pecorino romano, as opposed to, for example,
pecorino toscano or
pecorino sardo, this last being the variety of pecorino traditionally used in Genoese pesto but which is generally not available in this country. Perhaps then you are using different varieties of
pecorino for
romano is shorthand for
pecorino romano.
Antonius
Alle Nerven exzitiert von dem gewürzten Wein -- Anwandlung von Todesahndungen -- Doppeltgänger --
- aus dem Tagebuch E.T.A. Hoffmanns, 6. Januar 1804.
________
Na sir is na seachain an cath.