Trofie al pesto

As a boy, pasta al pesto was the dish of the rush. Today it's the one I give the most time to. The recipe hasn't changed: I have, and so has the place that dish holds in my life.

My mother grew basil on the terrace, and tended it like a child. She bought the seedlings at the Oneglia market, on Wednesdays or Saturdays, and from then on it was a constant checking of the sun, moving the pots, pinching off the bigger leaves so the small, good ones would stay.

Then, at the right time of year, when the basil was at its best, she'd make a stockpile: she made pesto in industrial quantities and froze it in a row of little jars. Less fresh, I know perfectly well. But in a family you have to be practical, and those jars were the secret of the hurried lunches.

The vegetable stalls, at the Oneglia market.

As a boy it worked like this: you thawed a jar, threw in the pasta, ten minutes and you were at the table. Nothing solemn: the quick thing for when there was no time to think about it.

Today, instead, I savour it: it's the Sunday dish, made fresh, slowly, when I have time to lose inside it. What as a child meant "be quick" has become the one I go slowest on.

And here's the thing my mother knew perfectly well but gave up for practicality: real pesto isn't blended. It's pounded: "pesto" comes from there, from pestare, to pound.

The mortar crushes the basil slowly, cold, and draws out the oils without heating them: it stays bright green, sweet, deeply fragrant. The blender, on the other hand, cuts, and the spinning blades heat up: that little bit of heat oxidises the basil (it turns it dark and a touch bitter) and "cooks" the most delicate aromas.

That's why the mortar is better. It's not snobbery: it's delicacy.

Pesto is pounded: basil, coarse salt and oil in the marble mortar.

That said, I don't have a mortar at home either, and for years a wonderful pesto came out of my mother's blender. If that's your way, follow the tip below.

But if you're here, by the sea, on holiday, my advice is just one: make it fresh. It's the perfect moment: you have exactly the time my mother, on a weekday, never had to spare.

Go down to the Oneglia market, where the vegetable stalls are fragrant from a distance, and get a bunch of basil, or a plant to keep on the windowsill and use as you go. Then make it right there: on a plate of trofie, on trenette, or just to dress a quick fresh pasta bought downstairs. Pesto pounded fresh, in a kitchen that smells of the sea, is another story from the jar.

Trofie al pesto with potatoes and green beans, the way it's done around here.

The real recipe is simple: basil, two cheeses (parmigiano for roundness, pecorino for character), pine nuts, garlic, a good taggiasca oil, coarse salt. Method and variations below.

Because my mother's way, more than a variation, was a philosophy: take away the superfluous. No pine nuts, no additions: just pasta and pesto. Basil and cheese, she'd say, are enough. She was right more often than I gave her credit for.

When I make it on a Sunday, slowly, I can still smell the basil from that terrace. The dish that was once "the rushed one" has become the one I take the most care over. If you're here, take the slow version: this is the right place for it.