realized it’s been a while since I’ve posted about anything I’ve cooked.
anyways! earlier in the week I made this thai basil + peanut pesto from kenji lopez alt’s wok cookbook. it was really good and swapping italian basil for thai basil, parm for fish sauce, pine nuts for peanuts in pesto is such a galaxy brain idea. however it did wind up being a little closer to pesto genovese in final flavor profile than I think I was picturing going in, and I want to try something that leans harder into brighter flavors instead of the real rich pestoey savory ones that this one still wound up in.
think I’m going to try it again soon but swap the herb ratio (do primarily cilantro with basil as an accent instead of the other way around), amp the ginger waaay up (the recipe calls for very very little. I did more than it called for and still feel like I could have gone harder), add some lime juice, and maybe some lemongrass. it’s one thing I find cool about working from cookbooks, they can be a nice source of initial ideas that you can run with and branch off of. cooking things by the book the first time is cool, but it’s a lot more fun on subsequent iterations when you can fine tune according to your own taste.