Caesar pesto

I was reading Dan Pashman's remarkably creative new book, Anything's Pastable, and his description of the "formula" for pesto got me thinking. As he notes, pesto can be any combination of herbs, nuts, cheese, and oil. This made me realize that my favorite dressing, Caesar, has a lot of those elements already: parmesan, olive oil, garlic, and potent flavors. Then I thought it would be delicious to create a build a pesto with the flavors of Caesar dressing by blending basil and greens and adding some sort of creamy nut or seed for body, plus classic Caesar flavors like anchovy and Worcestershire. That's what led me to create Caesar pesto.

In many ways, Caesar pesto is similar to traditional pesto, as you start with garlic, basil, and parmesan. However, instead of pine nuts, I opted to use tahini--pre-ground sesame seeds in oil--for creaminess. Cashews or pine nuts would also work well here. To give it more body, I added fresh arugula, although baby spinach would be great too. I then incorporated classic Caesar flavors like anchovies, Worcestershire sauce, and lemon.

I blended all these ingredients and added the resulting pesto to a pound of pasta, using cascatelli pasta in honor of Dan Pashman. The result was a delicious, herbaceous, zingy, Caesar-y pasta that I'm definitely going to make again. This pesto can also be used on pizza or as a dip for bread or crudités.

Caesar pesto
4 fresh garlic cloves 

3 T tahini, cashews, or pine nuts, optional
5 ounces fresh baby spinach and/or arugula
1 cup basil leaves, packed
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1/2 can anchovies about 4 fillets

2 T lemon juice
1 t Worcestershire

1/4 t salt

black pepper to taste

1/2 cup olive oil

In a food processor, dump all ingredients except olive oil and pulse until finely minced. Turn on food processor and incorporate olive oil gradually by streaming it in. This will keep the pesto creamy and stop it from separating. If you have a smaller food processor, you may need to add the ingredients in stages and wipe down the sides a few times. You're looking for a creamy but not overworked sauce.

This makes the perfect amount of pesto to go with 1 lb of pasta and make a generously saucy dish. I used cascatelli pasta, which did a great job holding onto the sauce!