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When I reach author and tour guide Katie Parla by phone, she’s at home in Rome. “Ciao! So, we’re talking pesto, right?” She’s warm and relaxed, having just finished her latest book, “Food of the Italian Islands.” I’m calling to talk to her about the underappreciated pestos of Southern Italy. Specifically, Pesto Pantesco, a rosy, tomato-based pesto made on the island of Pantelleria, a tiny body of land roughly halfway between Sicily and Tunisia that’s home to fewer than 10,000 people.
“It’s this volcanic island that’s part of Sicily, covered in vineyards and caper vines, windy and rugged … it’s a super magical place. I try to go as much as possible,” Parla says. Because it’s so hot on the island, many of its traditional recipes involve as little cooking as possible.
Capers are hand-harvested on Pantelleria and traditionally preserved in sea salt, giving them a stronger flavor than those jarred in a brine. They go into this pesto along with fresh tomatoes, almonds, a little garlic, olive oil, basil and mint. Rather than turning green, like the famous pesto of the North, it turns a color somewhere between mauve and bright red — depending on the color and ripeness of the tomatoes you use.
“The Ligurian pesto from Genoa has become the brand that people think of,” Parla says. “But there are many kinds of pesto. Pesto is a mashed-up sauce or condimento. It can take many forms.” In “Food of the Italian Islands,” Parla writes about pestos made from pistachios grown around Mount Etna; a tomato pesto from Trapani, on the northwestern tip of Sicily; and pesto Eoliana, which combines pistachios, almonds and salted capers.
For her variation of Pesto Pantesco, Parla made some tweaks to the traditional recipe. “Mine is a little herbier than the one you find in Pantelleria. When I’m thinking of developing recipes, I’m thinking of the flavor that the end product will have. In the U.S., tomatoes don’t have the same flavor as in Italy, so additional herbs give it an added freshness.” Italian tomatoes tend to have a thinner skin than those across the Atlantic, so Parla suggests blanching and peeling them — unless you’re picking tomatoes out of your garden or from a farm stand. “If you have super ripe summer tomatoes, there’s no need to peel them, and you can roll back the herbs a bit,” she advises.
To concentrate the flavor, or if you’re using lackluster tomatoes, you could also chop and cook them with a little olive oil and garlic, for no more than 10 minutes, before proceeding with the recipe. Worried that changing a recipe diverts too much from tradition? “I’m a fan of tweaks or seasonal adaptations,” Parla says. “It might not be canon, but it’s cooking in the Italian spirit.”
Pesto Pantesco can be served any way you’d like. Try it on:
- Cooked, hot pasta, such as spaghetti
- Cold pasta, for a pasta salad
- Grilled or roasted vegetables
- Just-boiled potatoes
- Crostini or fresh crusty bread
- Sauteed fish or chicken
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2023-08-17 12:42:52Z
CBMiUWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9mb29kLzIwMjMvMDgvMTcvcGVzdG8tcGFudGVzY28tcGFudGVsbGVyaWEtc2ljaWx5L9IBAA
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