Thai Pesto

I also have never made pesto at home. Brandon doesn't care much for it so I never made it.

My one-of-these-days-when-my-brother-grows-the-hell-up future sister-in-law sent me a few Thai cookbooks a few months ago. She's an Australian-trained chef after all, so whatever she picked must be good.

One of the books is called "Remixed" by Phol Tantasathien. This young, hip chef wrote an equally young, hip cookbook about making Thai food, well, young and hip. A fusion of Thai flavors into a very western food. Unfortunately for you guys, the book is in Thai. So you'll just have to wait for me to translate and share recipes as I go.

So, there's a recipe of Thai Pesto in here so I figured I'd work on that one.

Upon further inspection, I came to realize that the dude's recipe is measured out in tablespoons and grams.

Seriously? Thank goodness I just bought a kitchen scale. I mean, I know a bunch of "western" basil leaves, 2 cloves of garlic, or a cup of cashews, but in GRAMS?! Crying out loud...

Anyways. I made a half-recipe for this post. But below is the translated recipe, adjusted out of the grams (close enough) for your consumption.

Thai Pesto from Remixed by Phol Tantasathien



6 TBS of fish sauce

1.5 TBS of palm sugar, available at Asian grocery store. I didn't have any on hand so I used brown sugar instead. Not quite, but close enough.

2 Thai bird chili peppers, seeded and chopped. - If you can't take the heat, use less than that or eliminate altogether and rely on crushed red pepper flakes like I did instead.

4 gloves of garlic, roughly chopped. (14 grams/5 oz.)

A big bunch of Italian basil (not Thai sweet basil), take out the stems. (40 grams/1.4 oz)

45 grams/1.6 oz of toasted cashews, unsalted, roughly chopped. I actually used like 2 oz of nuts in my half batch. But I guess you can adjust to your liking here.

2 tsp of crushed red pepper flakes - again, adjust to your comfort level.

6 TBS of lime juice. Fresh lime, people. The bottle stuff doesn't even come close to the right flavor.

3/4 cup of good olive oil.

*Warning! Stinky Situation Ahead!*

In order to diffuse the lightly fishy smell of the fish sauce, first, we need to heat it up a little bit. So your house may stink just a tad here. Mix together fish sauce and brown sugar (and pepper flakes, if you'd like) in a small saucepan and put it on low until the sugar completely melted and the sauce is heated through. Set aside to cool.



In the food processor, put in chili peppers (or pepper flakes), garlic, basil, lime juice, and--my note here--3 TBS of the infused fish sauce. Pulse until everything is mixed well. Give a quick taste. Adjust seasoning.

FYI. Thai flavor profile is a balance of tartness, sweetness, saltiness, and spicy heat.

Why adding only 3 TBS of fish sauce? Because once you go salty, you can't come back from that, as I've learned. I trusted the measurement but turned out wayyy too salty. I would suggest tasting as you go and add the sauce as you need.

Keep the food processor running and slowly add olive oil until everything is well blended. Taste again.

Finally, add the cashews and pulse until combined. Don't over do it.

The sauce is now done. You can stick it in the fridge for later if you'd like.



Once you have your cooked pasta, add some pesto to a hot pan and toss in the hot pasta until warmed through. This also gives the fish sauce another chance to bloom.



Topped with grated parmesan, more chili peppers for color, and a little crushed cashews for presentation.

The verdict? Well, like I said, mine had a bit of the oversalting issue. I tried to balanced it out with everything else and I almost got it right. I can see the potential in this sauce, though, if done properly. :)