It's almost Summer - Pistou de Roquette

Finger licking good: Pistou de Roquette

I wanted some rocket salad to spice up my usual mix of leaves and without thinking bought a real big bag of these pungent leaves. After eating the salad, then mixing the rocket leaves with Turkish yoghurt, a finely minced clove of garlic and some salt and pepper (an absolutely delicious recipe a Turkish lady once taught me and which we love as a side dish at BBQs) there was still a lot of rocket left. And I didn't have much time to fix dinner and was fishing around for a quick recipe when inspiration hit - Pistou de Roquette! The usual Pistou in Provence is prepared with lots of basil and a close sister to the Italian Pesto, except that it lacks the parmesan. But I just love the creaminess of the freshly grated cheese so here I took 150g (3 generous cups) of rocket, 50g (1/3 of a cup) of freshly grated parmesan, 50 g (1/3 of a cup) of powdered almonds, 2 cloves of minced garlic, pepper fresh from the mill and about four tbsp of our precious "Gold of Provence" - olive oil that is. All went into the mixer and out came this luscious, beautifully green concoction. Stirred into hot pasta - simple but oh so good! And I used the leftover pistou (the little there was) as a dressing with my lunch tomato salad. It tasted like summer. And out of my kitchen window right now it looks like summer, too....

Cuisine de Provence's Kitchen View