Garlic Day – Wild garlic pesto recipe

Following on from Damson Day, today marked Garlic Day. Wild garlic is just starting to come into flower, and like Damson Day, Garlic Day seems to celebrate the beginning of the season. We have many pockets of wild garlic, in slightly damp, wooded areas in the lanes around us. One, which is just off of the route I drive through each day, is ideal for stopping at on my way home to grab some leaves to add to a salad.

Using the wild garlic l gathered yesterday, and some from closer to home, I made a super-quick wild garlic pesto. I made this pesto into a creamy sauce, added some left-over chicken and served it between homemade sheets of pasta with the wild garlic flowers pressed in dough. A very ‘garlicky’ meal to celebrate the day!

Pesto recipe

Ingredients:

15gr wild garlic leaves

5gr fresh basil leaves

15gr parmesan, chopped into small cubes,

15gr pine nuts

70ml olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Roughly chop, or rip, the garlic and basil leaves.
2. Put the cheese and nuts in a magimix for a few seconds until both are chopped.
3. Add the leaves and blitz until all the ingredients are combined.
4. Add the olive oil and the salt and pepper and blitz for a few seconds.
5. Using a spatula, transfer the pesto into a jar and top up with more oil so that mixture is covered.