Mexican-Style Pesto - Mexican Food Cooking for Busy People

On a recent trip to Mexico City, a meal at one of my favorite restaurants anywhere in the world, Águila y Sol, reminded me just how much I enjoy Mexico's elegant, upscale style of cooking. Often called nueva cocina mexicana, or new-style Mexican cooking, it was the subject of my third book, Jim Peyton's New Cooking from Old Mexico. When properly executed, it manages to combine the soul nourishing, earthiness of traditional Mexican cooking with the aesthetic appeal of four-star restaurant cooking.

In searching for a simple but delicious recipe to provide a taste of the genre, I settled on the following: Pesto a la mexicana. Like all good nueva cocina dishes it combines earthiness with elegance. Most cooks know that pesto is an Italian dish usually made by grinding together garlic, walnuts or pine nuts, olive oil, basil, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper, then mixing the resulting paste with steaming hot pasta. It is a favorite of mine, but I can honestly say that everyone to whom I have served the following Mexican version made with garlic, pine nuts, olive oil, cilantro, canned chipotle chile, salt, pepper, lime juice, and crumbly Mexican cotija cheese, tossed with Mexican fideo-style pasta prefers it to the original.

FIDEO WITH MEXICAN-STYLE PESTO

This dish is so easy to prepare that it is ideal for weekday meals and so delicious that it is also a perfect choice for entertaining. It serves well as either a first course, side dish or main entree, especially in a meal featuring other nueva cocina mexicana dishes; simply adjust the portion sizes. (Those given in the recipe are for a main entree).
Fideo is a Mexican pasta that is similar to Italian angel hair. However, since it is the sauce that makes this dish superb, it can be used with virtually any pasta, dry or fresh. I particularly like it with fresh angel-hair pasta.
The pesto is made with cotija cheese, which is moderately hard and crumbly. It is often referred to as Mexico's answer to Parmesan. Yes, you could substitute Parmesan, Romano or pecarino cheese for the queso cotija, but please do not do so unless absolutely necessary. For one thing the dish will no longer be Mexican. Most importantly it will not, in my opinion, be nearly as good. Cotija cheese is available in many southwestern supermarkets, and is not too difficult to find elsewhere, especially in large cities.

Fideo with Pesto a la Mexicana
1/4 cup pine nuts
2 cups loosely packed cilantro
2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 large (or 1 2 medium) canned chipotle chiles, seeds removed and coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

2 teaspoon black pepper
10 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
3 ounces (about 2 cup) coarsely chopped Mexican cotija cheese
12 ounces fideos or angel hair pasta, (Fresh angel hair pasta is a perfect choice).
1 avocado, flesh removed and cut into small chunks or slices
1/4 cup raw, hulled, pumpkin seeds (toasted by tossing them with 1 teaspoon oil and cooking them in a skillet over medium heat, until they pop like popcorn)
Cilantro leaves for garnish
4 or more lime wedges

Place the first 8 ingredients in a food processor and process until they are pureed. With the machine running, add the cheese through the feed tube and continue processing just until it is incorporated into the puree. Reserve 2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons of the sauce and store the rest in the refrigerator or freezer for future use.

Bring a large pot of slightly salted water to a boil and cook the pasta until al dente (about 1 2 minutes for fresh angel hair pasta and much longer for dried). Strain the pasta, return it to the pot, add and toss 2/3 cup of the pesto (reserving the remaining 2 tablespoons) then divide into 4 servings. Top each serving with some pieces of avocado, 2 tablespoon of the remaining pesto, and the toasted pumpkin seeds, then garnish with some cilantro leaves and serve with the lime wedges on the side.

MEXICAN-STYLE PESTO Simplicity with earthy elegance

MEXICAN-STYLE PESTO
Simplicity with earthy elegance