Teaching classes for Williams-Sonoma's customers is one of the things I love most about my job.  This past Sunday I had the opportunity to teach a technique class on Olive Oil. The difficult part is that I never know how many people to expect, their level of knowledge or their expectations.  That is the challenge that drives me to find the best way to both meet the class objectives - the reason Williams Sonoma is paying me - and to find a way to relate the subject so it has relevance for the participants, whomever they might be.

When I teach a technique class, it's just that, and NOT a recipe class.  If it were a recipe class I'd hand out copies of a recipe and walk people through how to make that dish.  What I hope to do is teach you something that you can apply more generally to your cooking.  I want you to play with your food; to experiment with flavors, textures and techniques to arrive at a style that suits you.

William-Sonoma's goal for this class was to educate customers as to why extra-virgin olive oils are special and when to use them.  My goal for the class was to effectively show the diversity of olive oil by sharing not only a savory dish but also showcasing olive oil's sweeter side by sharing a family recipe for Sicilian Olive Oil Cake.  Lifestyles here in Manhattan are very different from those in the sprawling suburbs where I spent my youth.  I'm the oldest of 5 and most of my friends were also part of what would be considered a large family here in Manhattan.   I wanted to see if I could come up with a dish would work for both large and small families as well as singles.   Williams-Sonoma "required" a pesto dish for the class and suggested serving it on crostini.  While I love the delicacy of a Genovese style basil pesto, I was hoping to do something a little different and combine it with one of my favorite staples - pasta.

Sometimes life just decides it's time to cut you a break and apparently Sunday it was my turn.  The ingredients necessary for the cooking class were not in the store’s refrigerator as I had expected.  So a quick trip to the market was in order.  I was told to get basil and whatever cheese I’d need to make the traditional pesto from the recipe I was handed, but when I got to the market they were out of basil!  I didn't have time to go to another store, so I happily picked up some parsley and arugula to whip up my favorite pesto. 

Before I give you the recipe for this pesto, I wanted to share a bit of information about this wonderful sauce pesto.  The passage below was copied directly from the Williams-Sonoma website:

Originating in Genoa, in the Liguria region of Italy, pesto is an uncooked sauce made from fresh basil, garlic, pine nuts, Parmigiano-Reggiano or pecorino cheese and olive oil. Pesto is traditionally prepared by hand using a mortar and pestle (pesto, from pestare, means to pound). Back in the days of seafaring merchants and explorers, sailors knew they were almost home when they smelled the sweet scent of basil wafting from the hillsides above Genoa, where the aromatic herb flourishes. 

Today, pesto is made with a variety of other ingredients besides basil. Roasted red bell peppers, arugula, mint and olives are all wonderful foundations for the sauce, as you will discover with the recipes featured here. Often tossed with cooked pasta, pesto is also delicious served on crostini, spooned onto grilled seafood or chicken, or tucked inside steaks before cooking.

There are two very different reasons why I love arugula pesto - first, I love the peppery zing of arugula (translated this means "rocket") and the second reason is a practical one. Basil is a tender herb and turns rapidly from it's lovely natural green state into a blackish mess rather quickly. I was a single mom for a while and had to watch every dime.  Basil doesn’t hold up in the refrigerator and was way more expensive than other items I could use.  I started substituting other greens for basil more than 15 years ago and I’m not about to stop anytime soon!

Baby spinach also makes a lovely pesto and was a great way to get greens into my young boys.  The three of us didn't finish a pound of pasta for dinner (thankfully they weren't teens yet!) and I found that other greens remained appetizingly green the next day making it a welcomed cold lunch for me the next day.

Why bring up these points?  If you happen to be single or only cooking for two, it's great to cook a whole pound of pasta and not have to cook again the next night or worry about what you'll bring for lunch - especially when you work a lot of hours or it's too hot to cook like these past few days.

So before I give you my arugula recipe. promise me you'll experiment with other herbs and leafy greens!  The TECHNIQUE remains the same no matter what greens you choose.

I’ll mention that I don’t usually measure, unless I’m baking, so all these measurements are approximates.  I always use a mini food processor to make pesto, but if you have the time/energy to use the traditional mortar and pestle, more power to you.

Family Friendly Pesto

Ingredients:

Approx 3 oz by weight or 2 cups by volume - baby arugula - washed and dried in a salad spinner

1 large bunch flat leaf Italian Parsley - washed and died in a salad spinner

2 to 3 T of Pine nuts

2 to 3 cloves garlic depending on size and your tastes

Juice of 1/2 a large lemon

1/2 cup – ¾ Cup of a high quality Extra-Virgin Olive Oil *

1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

1/4 cup shredded Pecorino cheese

1/2 cup of reserved pasta water or home-made salt-free chicken stock**

1 pound pasta of your choice

Technique:

In a 4 cup mini food processor place equal amounts of arugula and parsley leaves (tender stems are okay – but avoid using the tougher “main stem” of the parsley) in the bowl

Add the garlic cloves, lemon juice and about 1/4 C olive oil.

Pulse the food processor until the leaves are reduced to a fine mince.

Add both cheeses and approx. another ¼ C olive oil

Continue to pulse, add olive oil if necessary to get the desired consistency 

Toss the pesto into well-drained pasta while the pasta is still warm.

This is also delicious served cold as a pasta salad.

Feel free to toss in cubed left over roasted chicken to change things up.

* My favorites are Organic Ravida from the Southern coast of Sicily (described as intensely green in both color and flavor, slightly fruity with a hint of almond, finishing up with a sharp pop of pepper at the end) or the Nicolas Alzieri from the south of France (described as buttery, fruity (lemons and apples), with some light grassy notes reminiscent of artichokes)

** Since good extra virgin olive oil is very flavorful and not the least expensive of items, I tend to add my own homemade chicken stock in place of any additional oil to achieve the consistency I like when dressing pasta.  This also serves to save a few calories. Should you choose to use chicken stock be sure your not adding a lot of extra sodium since the cheese is plenty salty!!