Green beans and potatoes with pesto

SERVES 6

“This is not a dish you will ever see in Italy, or maybe very rarely, but I have decided to include it in this book because of the popularity of pesto,” says Del Conte. “While in Italy pesto is eaten only with pasta, here it is matched with many other ingredients. In Liguria, the motherland of basil pesto, a few cubed potatoes and cut up French beans are boiled in the water together with the pasta. The drained mixture is then dressed with pesto. Here I have eliminated the pasta and written the recipe just for beans and potatoes. And it is delicious. If you don’t feel like making pesto from scratch, use a good brand of ready-made pesto.” 500 gm new potatoes

500 gm green beans, trimmed

1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil 30 gm pine nuts

Shaved parmesan (optional), to serve

PESTO

25 gm basil, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, finely chopped 60 ml (1/4 cup) extra-virgin olive oil 1 tbsp lemon juice 1 Scrub potatoes, put them in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil, add 1 tbsp of salt and cook until potatoes are tender when pricked with the point of a knife (14-18 minutes). Drain and set aside. If you want, remove the skins as soon as the potatoes are cool enough to handle. Personally I never peel new potatoes.

2 Meanwhile, cut beans in half, drop them in a saucepan of boiling salted water and cook to your liking (around 2-3 minutes). I like my beans to be just firm, not squeaky. Drain well and transfer to a bowl.

3 Cut any large potatoes into halves or quarters and add to beans. Toss the whole thing with oil and set aside.

4 Dry-roast pine nuts in a non-stick frying pan

(2-3 minutes; see cook’s notes p152). Be careful not to burn them. As soon as pine nuts are golden, add to beans and potatoes.

5 To make the pesto, combine basil and garlic in a bowl, then gradually add oil while beating with a fork. Pour in lemon juice, spoon dressing over potatoes and mix together very well. Season with salt to taste. Pepper is not usually added to pesto, but you can add it if you want. Serve with parmesan.