Pesto Rosso with Fettuccine

Pesto Rosso, or red pesto, is this wonderfully sweet and lightly acidic paste that's makes a great pasta sauce, or spread over warm toast. It gets its deep red colour from the sun-dried tomatoes. Traditionally its made by pounding everything together in a mortar and pestle, but its so much simpler to blitz it in food processor. The pestle method also creates grainer pesto, while I prefer mine to be smoother. For the sun-dried tomatoes, if you're short on time or patience, or are in a place like Bangalore where the sun hides lazes underneath a blanket of clouds, you can just dry tomatoes out in an oven. I dried them out on gas mark 3 for around 3-4 hours; a kilo of tomatoes makes around a cup of dried tomatoes. To serve with pasta, use 2 tbsp of the paste and mix it with a tablespoon of grated parmesan or grana padano, then thin it out with the  a cup full of the pasta cooking liquor. The recipe for fresh fettuccine can be found here. This recipe will make around a cup and half of pesto, and it keeps well in the fridge for around 2 weeks.

Ingredients

• 1 cup sun dried tomatoes
• 6 almonds, chopped
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 tbsp black olives
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 2 tsp paprika

Method

1. Toast the chopped almonds on high heat, until they release their aroma. Keep shaking the pan to prevent the almonds from burning.
2. Add the chopped almonds, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper to a grinder, and mince it until its evenly chopped.
3. Add half the olive oil and blitz to create a thick paste. Add the remaining olive oil for a thinner paste.
4. Store in the fridge in a dry air tight jar.
5. For a richer paste, mix in around 2 tbsp of parmesan or grana padano.