Friday, February 17, 2012

Roasted Garlic with Cilantro Pesto (Pesto de ajo con cilantro)

While the name "pesto" is Italian, this dish is similar to the Catalan "picada" that I have used lately in some of the recipes I made. The difference is that if you use "picada" to thicken sauces you will use fried bread, and will not use cheese. Let's try roasted garlic infused with saffron,  pine nuts, olive oil, parmesan cheese and cilantro instead of basil. The roasted garlic can be used as a spread instead of mixing it with the rest of the ingredients.


Ingredients:


1 garlic head
olive oil
saffron
salt


For the pesto: 


1/2 cup pine nuts
1 cup cilantro or basil
1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
2 drops lemon juice




To roast a garlic head, cut the top, expose the garlic, add olive oil, salt and saffron, put on  aluminum foil, close tightly and put in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for 35 minutes.


In a blender put the pine nuts, cilantro or basil, olive oil, parmesan cheese and salt. We don't add garlic since we use roasted garlic as a spread.


Spread each bread slice with a garlic clove, add the pesto and place on a platter.

1 comment:

  1. Hola,
    Soy de la clase Señora Anderson. Hice de ajo con cilantro. Es muy fácil de hacer. No pude encontrar el azafrán, pero es bien. Yo hace otra vez.

    Isabel Nickel.

    ReplyDelete