Thursday, January 27, 2011

Moderately hot - Horseradish Pesto

There's something about horseradish cream that makes it lift any type of food out of the doldrums.  Any type of savoury food, that is, as I can't imagine horseradish on something sweet (have you tried wasabi ice cream? Ick!)

This recipe is basically an ordinary green pesto with the addition of horseradish cream. You could also use unadulterated horseradish, but being the cream hound that I am, that's what I added, and it's not a bad substitute at all.  The horseradish adds a nice back-of-the tongue heat to the pesto that is very addictive.

Horseradish pesto
makes 1/2 cup

Ingredients
2 cups basil leaves, roughly torn
2 tblsp store-bought horseradish cream
2 tblsp pinenuts, toasted
2 tblsp parmesan, finely grated
sea salt and cracked black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil

Method
1.  Place the basil, horseradish cream, pinenuts, cheese, salt, pepper and oil in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth.

recipe adapted from donna hay (feb/mar 2010)

Just throw everything into a food processor and whiz it.


Serving suggestion 1: Mix the horseradish pesto through cooked pasta, with some torn rocket or spinach leaves.


Serving suggestion 2: Dollop the horseradish pesto on a smoked trout salad - chunks of hot-smoked ocean trout (or salmon), boiled potatoes and green beans.

12 comments:

  1. The horseradish must add such decadent spice to this! Delicious.

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  2. That's a great idea mixing it through pasta. Might try it this weekend.

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  3. oh nice! I will have to indulge in this hot pesto.

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  4. What a great, simple idea - particularly like the sound of it with smoked trout.

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  5. you had me at horseradish! looks really delicious and would be wonderful with trout!

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  6. I reckon this'd go quite nicely with a steak actually. And I happen to be a bit of a horseradish fan too!

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  7. Oohhh Rita has the right idea! I love pesto and horseradish and together they will marry a nice slab of steak for tasty times

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  8. I've bookmarked this recipe. Such an unusual combination!

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  9. Ahh horseradish cream is my current favourite addition to steak! This sounds fantastic - I love the idea of adding it to pesto to make a quick and easy pasta sauce.

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  10. Yum yum! My grandfather would have loved this, if only I had spotted this post earlier!

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  11. I love pesto, Bel! And I've never seen it with horseradish. That sounds stellar. I'm totally going to try this soon. Need horseradish...!

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  12. Now this is right up my alley. I love my pesto and now by adding horseradish I can vamp up things like baked spuds, steak or even grilled fish. Yummo!

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