Low-FODMAP Pesto

Wow, it has been HOT here in Berlin. Highs of 39°C and long days of sunshine have had most Berliners heading out to the parks and enjoying the weather, but I’ve been cowering near the fan and drinking iced water! I cannot deal with the heat at all, and managed to get the beginnings of heat exhaustion on my 15-minute walk to the swimming pool yesterday. Thankfully I was on my way to the pool, so that one sorted itself out. Still, I’m refusing to turn the oven on and we’re sticking mostly to salads in an attempt to cool down. I whipped up some pesto on Saturday to pep up a simple tomato salad, and it has since been used in 4 meals! Turns out I was really missing pesto.

 My pre-FODMAP go-to pesto recipe used 4 garlic cloves, which was delicious, but I like how the fragrant basil really comes through in this low-FODMAP recipe as it’s not being overpowered by the garlic. You can really taste the other individual ingredients. I also used sunflower seeds to replace some of the pine nuts because this is something I started doing when I was a poor student and couldn’t afford pine nuts, but it’s also a great tip for nut allergy sufferers -  just replace the 4 tablespoons of pine nuts with more sunflower seeds and it’s nut-free. Also, aged cheeses like parmesan and grana padano are lactose-free!

I bought a basil plant and just used the whole thing, but it is kind of hard to measure as it’s very springy. I fit it all into one cup, just to check, mostly because I thought I couldn’t just use “one plant” as a measurement.

Ingredients:
1 cup fresh basil
1 cup olive oil
4 tablespoons pine nuts
6 tablespoons sunflower seeds
1/2 cup finely grated parmesan or grana padano
2 teaspoons lemon juice
salt and pepper

Method:

Put the basil plant (stalks and all) into the food processor with the olive oil, sunflower seeds and cheese. Add the lemon juice along with 2 tablespoons of the pine nuts and set the rest aside for later. Blend until it forms quite a smooth paste and season to taste with salt and black pepper (you can just leave the pepper out if you need to avoid it). At this point, I roughly smash up the remaining pine nuts with a pestle and mortar and mix them through. You can also keep some whole pine nuts and full basil leaves aside to garnish your dishes with.

We enjoyed this with some rice pasta, over a simple tomato salad, and served over a fillet of pollock with a side of potatoes and a green salad. Enjoy!