My shameful shortcut to perfect pesto

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been… too long since my last confession. Picture the scene. I am in the kitchen, almost literally spinning plates. I should have been focusing, prioritising the bits that needed to get done, keeping an eye on the clock. Instead I’ve been mucking about, making an unnecessary batch of cookies, re-testing some buns that almost certainly didn’t need it, but I fancied baking. And I’ve lost track of time.

I’d volunteered to do lunch earlier in the day when my husband had mentioned that he was in back-to-back meetings with a breakneck turn-around lunch break. Now here he is: ‘OK, here we go, I have 20 minutes for lunch!’ I am in no way prepared to serve lunch imminently. Luckily lunch is supposed to be simple: a classic pesto pasta. No accoutrements or faffing, just an easy and delicious way of using up the huge bunch of basil burning a hole in my fridge.

Traditionally – properly – pesto should be made in a pestle and mortar. The pine nuts bashed until creamy, followed by the basil leaves, until they break down, and then the oil and cheese worked in, until you have a cohesive, uniform mixture, a sauce, with just a little texture. That is not what happened here.

I begin with good intentions. But my mortar and pestle is not really fit for purpose. It’s too small for just about anything: you couldn’t possibly make guacamole or hummus in it, unless you were preparing portions for ants. Szechuan peppercorns immediately break its banks and bounce all over the worktop; cardamom pods skate up its sides, leaving the husks in the bowl and the seeds nowhere to be seen. And it was clearly designed for aesthetics more than heavy-duty bashing: the base is even covered in felt, which makes washing up particularly tricky.