Carrot Top Pesto

[minoanmiss]

I forget when I found out that pesto is a class of sauces comprisng a usually green herbaceous element, a nut, a hard cheese, and a rich oil (usually olive), rather than the Basil Example I first met. I tried some time ago to make Carrot Top Pesto, because those fronds do look tasty, but found it hideously bitter.


I think one of my roommates asked me to make it and it took three tries but I finally did.

This is not a fast recipe. If you just yeet all the carrot tops into your food processor you will end up having to have a funeral for either the food processor or your taste buds. The carrot tops need to be patiently picked through to select only fronds, no stems, and to remove anything dried, dead, nasty, or insect. THEN you need to wash them.

THEN, and I think this made the difference, you need to blanch them in a big pot of boiling salted water. Most pesto recipes don't include a blanching step (I think it's because it's not a good idea to blanch the basil) and I think most greens benefit. It sets the color, collapses the mass (it's easier to put one cup of blanched greens into the food processor than 8 cups of raw greens), and rinses away annoying flavors. The salt also helps counteract bitterness.

The recipe below adds baby spinach, which I find superfluous (and it also goes bad faster than the carrot greens). I added about a tbsp of fresh tarragon leaves to a cup of blanched carrot greens instead. It came out pretty well. I look forward to my roommates' reports.

https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/carrot_top_pesto/

Comments

[flamingsword]

I've never eaten a carrot top, but now I want to try a nibble.

[magid]

Huh. I did try to use carrot tops once, and gave up. Perhaps I'll try again (probably next year, at this point, since the farm share carrots are coming without greens at this point in the season).

[mekare]

Thanks for sharing the experiment!

[oracne]

Thanks for this! I bet the blanching would help if one used kale, as well. Hmmm.

[minoanmiss]

Oh absolutely.

[full_metal_ox]

Most pesto recipes don't include a blanching step (I think it's because it's not a good idea to blanch the basil)

DING DING DING! That’s where so many recipes (particularly involving substitutions, and above all Anglo-diasporic) go wrong: Plant A is not Plant B, and may require entirely different handling.

(Some years ago, Brad from “It’s Alive” on Bon Appetit’s YouTube channel undertook to make what he called kimchi. One step that drew a lot of viewer sporking included massaging the leaves beforehand: rubbing them vigorously beforehand with salt and/or oil to tenderize them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUwy71ddj1M

I’m fairly sure what assumption Brad was working from: for tough sturdy greens like kale, collards, and the outer blue-green leaves of big old English cabbage, that’s a helpful measure if you intend to eat them raw and don’t care to munch stringy intractable cellulose like a donkey.

Brassica rapa subsp. pekinensis—-AKA baechu, Napa cabbage, hakusai, siu pak choy, or dàbáicài—-is a whole different bundle of greens. My own (Anglo-diasporic and non-heritage) experience has been that even the outermost leaves of large heads are quite tender enough to eat raw (or flash-blanched for sanitation’s sake) in salad.)

[pensnest]

I don't think I would ever have thought of making pesto with carrot tops. Not that I tend to buy carrots with their tops, but it looks as though I should try.

[amaebi]

Carrots and tarragon are dear friends, so I expect carrot tops with tarragon will get along….

[med_cat]

Congrats on your successful culinary experiment :)

[lunabee34]

I didn't realize pesto could be any green; I thought it always had to be basil.

*takes notes*