Dandelion Blossom Pesto

Readers of this blog know that I love pesto. I try all different kinds of ingredients and so far they've all turned out to be extremely tasty. Yesterday, I spent some me time having one of my weekend cookathons during which I prepared three different kinds of wild flower pesto, dandelion pesto, ground elder and sorrel pesto.

500 g dandelion flowers

1 small handful of freshly grated parmesan

15 roasted Brazil nuts, chopped

1 garlic clove, squashed

freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
extra virgin olive oil as needed

Wash the dandelions, spin and fry in olive oil for about 5 min. Combine all the ingredients in a food processor or the beaker of a handheld mixer and blitz. The amount of olive oil depends on how runny you want the pesto to be. I prefer it to be quite thick rather than excessively oily. 

Transfer into sterilised screw-top jars, top up with olive oil to seal and screw on the lid. The ingredients above resulted in approx. 600 ml of pesto. This pesto is quite rich so you need less of it than of other herb-based pesto varieties.

As one jar was only half full, we at it that night with spaghetti and scattered some more freshly ground parmesan and a few ground ivy blossoms over the top. It was to die for!