How to Make Basil Pesto Perfectly | Chef Jean-Pierre

Friends, I'm going to show you how to make my version of pesto. It's amazing. Went in to get tested. I got a trick also where you can freeze it. You'll never see anything like it. You'll love it. It's wonderful. First, we got beautiful basil leaves. How many of them? I don't know. Just put a few of them. Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You see? I already screwed up. So that's okay. We're going to actually... See? You don't want to do that first. You want to put the garlic cloves in there first. It's a good thing I did. You see? I make mistakes to show you how not to make mistakes. That's how I do it. How do you like that one, eh? So you want to put a few garlic cloves in there. And the reason why you want to put the garlic cloves in it first is because you want to chop it up. Unless you have the garlic puree, like I make the video on it, then you can use the garlic puree. But let's say you didn't make the garlic puree. So then you can't put the basil and then the garlic on it and expect then the garlic is going to be all nicely pureed. You're going to have a bunch of chunked garlic unless you puree these for 20 minutes. And that's no good. So we just want to put the garlic and the olive oil. Beautiful olive oil, yeah? I'm using a garlic olive oil. You can use a basil olive oil. You can use whatever olive oil you want. As long as it's a good olive oil, right? Extra virgin olive oil, right? We're going to puree it. We're going to cut the garlic up now, you see? We're going to cut it up right there. And then we're going to put the rest of the ingredients in there. Now at least our garlic is pureed. Maybe put a little bit more olive oil in. Just a little more olive oil. I know I'm going to need it anyway. And the reason why I do that now is because if I didn't do that right now, you know. And there's no way in a world that my garlic would get pureed right away, right? So now we're going to put a little bit of basil in here. Just a little bit of basil, right? And how much you put in, you know, it's difficult to tell you exactly how much to put in. Get a good couple of cups of basil. That'll be good in there, right? And now we don't need garlic anymore because we already got it. We want to put some cheese. Parmigiano Reggiano, okay? Remember now. Parmigiano Reggiano doesn't come in a green box. That's the other cheese that comes in a green box. You know what I mean, right? That's not no good. So you want to grate it. You know the best way to grate it, believe it or not, is to cut it in chunks. Little chunks and put them in a food processor. And look, you can do it in five minutes, all right? So put some cheese in there. Measure carefully. It's a pesto. It's not like a recipe to send a man on the moon, eh? Just a pesto. A little bit of Parmesan cheese. Now, nuts. Let's talk about nuts. I keep my nuts in the freezer. I don't know about you, but I'm telling you, I think it's a good idea. They don't get rancid. I hate rancid nuts. So traditionally, in Genova, they put the pine nuts. They roasted the pine nuts a little bit. So to make everybody happy, I roasted the pine nuts. But you know what I like also? I like a sliver almond. Macadamia nut also. Put whatever nut you want. Be as nutty as you want. There you go. What else? I get it, right? I got the basil. I got the oil. I got the garlic. I'm good now. So now we're going to puree that whole thing. And this is when we're going to add enough oil. And add enough oil means that it's liquid enough. Let's look at this here, folks. Let's look at this here. Do you think it's got enough oil? I don't think so. As a matter of fact, it doesn't. You see, it's still a little bit needed of a little bit more oil. So what we're going to do, we're going to put a little bit more olive oil. And another thing that we need to do, folks, is to put the juice of a lemon. The juice of a lemon is going to avoid the oxidation just a little bit. And that's okay because the oil is enough fat to offset the acidity of the lemon. So you won't even know it's in there. It's just for the oxidation of the basil. Let's look at it now again. Oh, baby, look. You see? We're almost there. We're almost there, friends. You see? Look, look. So this is why it's not important to measure. It's more important to know what it is you're looking for. You're looking for a little bit of a liquid consistency so you can rub it on fish. You can rub it on chicken. You can serve with tomato mozzarella. You can do. I'd rather have it more liquid than too thick. It's up to you. You do it however you want to do it. But let me tell you, I do so many things with this. Look, look, look, look, look. Look how beautiful it is. You see? Look at this. Look at it. Now we don't have any chunk of garlic right there, right? Look how beautiful that is. You can do a little bit more liquid too, just a little bit more, okay? Okay, hold on. Here we go. Right here, just a little bit. All right? Now, let me go get a lemon, folks, because I had a lemon. No, it is. It is right here. Don't go anywhere. Actually, I got the lemon juice. I knew I had it somewhere. I came and had it already. So look, don't put a lot of lemon. Just a little bit of lemon, okay? Oh, I think I lost the camera. I knocked the camera around. Let's see. Look, look. Put about a tablespoon of lemon. Okay, that was two tablespoons. You guys are going to go like, Mama mia, this guy don't know how to measure. He says, put a tablespoon, and he puts two. All right, look. I promise you, you're not going to taste the lemon. There's enough oil in there. There's enough fat to offset the acidity. I promise you. So look, look, look. Look, look. I'm telling you guys. Look at this. Look how beautiful that is. You see what I'm talking about? Right there, look at that. This is exactly the perfect consistency. Okay, so now, how do we preserve this? Well, in the restaurant business, what we do, we take a little eight-ounce container like this. All right, I'll show you. Eight-ounce container, and we put it on top of it, and then we put the plastic on top, and that protects it, okay? I promise you, it stays in your freezer. You defrost it. It's beautiful, right? You can do that, or you can do it in ice cube trays. Look. You want a little pesto? Pop a cube. Pop a cube of pesto. You see, look. Very simple, right? If you let it defrost a little bit, put it in a bowl, put a little bit of olive oil. That'll preserve it. Whatever you do, you can put it in the freezer, I promise you, because you can't save that in the refrigerator. Too long, maybe a few days. But in the freezer, 17 years. Very simple to make. Here you go, friends. Very easy pesto recipe. Remember, don't be measuring so much. Just look at it. Just look at it and see what it looks like. You see, it's gorgeous. Make the pesto. I know you're going to love it. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel. Don't forget to ring the bell so you get a notification next week when we put out a new video. And if you like it, give us a thumbs-up. Thanks for watching. Make this pesto. It's fabulous.