As promised, here are a couple of essential Italian recipes that contain il basilico (basil).

The first one is the famous Pesto, which takes about 15 minutes to prepare. The quantities given below should make enough pesto for four to six (Italian!) people.

You will need:

100g di foglie di basilico (100 grams of basil leaves)

uno spicchio d’aglio (a clove of garlic)

50g di pinoli (50 grams of pine nuts)

5 gherigli di noci (5 shelled walnuts)

2 cucchiai di parmigiano grattugiato (2 spoons of grated parmesan cheese)

2 cucchiai di pecorino grattugiato (2 spoons of grated pecorino cheese)

1 pizzico di sale (a pinch of salt)

150g circa d’olio d’oliva (around 150 grams of olive oil)

Wash the basil leaves, and spread them out on a tea towel to dry off the surplus water. Put them in a mortaio (mortar) with the salt and begin to pestare (crush) them. Add the pine nuts and walnuts and squash them against the sides of the mortaio with the pestello (pestle). When the basilico is well mixed with the other ingredients add the grated cheese a bit at a time. Mix the ingredients well, adding the olive oil in order to obtain a thick liquid paste. Now make yourself a nice piatto di spaghetti (plate of spaghetti), add your lovely fresh pesto, and enjoy!

By the way, as you may have guessed the name pesto comes from the verb pestare (to crush), and the pestello is literally the ‘crusher’.

If pesto sounds a bit too complicated, or you don’t have all the ingredients then you can always try the second recipe, Salsa di pomodoro, also known as Pomarola.

You will need:

1 kg di pomodori maturi (1 kilo of ripe, preferably sweet tomatoes)

una cipolla piccola (one small onion)

uno spicchio d’aglio (one clove of garlic)

un mazzetto di basilico (a small bunch, or handful of basil)

olio d’oliva (olive oil)

sale (salt)

Drop the tomatoes in boiling water for a moment to loosen the skins, peel and chop them, remove the seeds, and then blend them. Finely chop the onion and garlic and gently sauté them in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Add the blended tomatoes, basil leaves, and salt, and leave the salsa to simmer for about half an hour. This salsa is wonderful with any pasta dish, just pour the it over the cooked pasta and sprinkle a bit of grated parmigiano, or chopped mozzarella on top.

In fine (finally), I’ll leave you with this excerpt from an interesting  comment I received from Kavita about my article: http://www.transparent.com/italian/il-basilico

“Il basilico italiano is a cousin of indian basil (tulsi)!
This is interesting. Basil has so many beneficial properties it is considered holy here in India.”

Buon appetito