I am a city girl through and through, but during the summer the suburbs sing a one-note siren song that has nothing to do with escaping the teeming masses or the asphalt-aggravated heat and everything to do with grilling. Where I live, apartment buildings are not allowed to have grills, no matter how petite, and every summer that regulation fills me with wistfulness for my misspent Midwestern youth, when grilling was the default cooking method from March to October.
Since I’m unwilling, at least for now, to trade the privileges of city living for suburbia—or the country, despite my occasional Green Acres-style fantasies—summer turns into one long “how little can we turn on the oven” competition. (Answer: not quite as little as I would like.) The season is a steady parade of dishes that require minimal cooking, one that could quickly get tedious if not for condiments like this cilantro-jalapeno pesto. It takes no more than 10 minutes to put together, and can be put to a myriad of uses: scrambled into eggs, an accompaniment to broiled fish, or our favorite—slathered onto whole-wheat ciabatta and loaded up with roasted veggies. If you’re lucky enough to have a grill, this pesto is still your friend; it goes equally well on virtually anything that comes off of a grill, no suburbs required.
Cilantro-Jalapeno Pesto
Sources: Inspired by Dirty Gourmet
Makes ~2 cups
Total time: ~10 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 large bunch flat-leaf parsley
- 1 large bunch cilantro
- 12 green onions
- 1–2 jalapenos, depending on how spicy you like it
- 1 cup unroasted, unsalted cashews
- Olive oil
- Salt
Directions:
- Trim the bottom 1″ of stems off your parsley and cilantro and discard. Roughly chop the rest of the herbs, stems and all, and put them in the bowl of your food processor.
- Trim the root ends off of the green onions, and the top 1″ or so off the top. Roughly chop the onions and add them to the food processor bowl.
- Finally, chop the stem end off of the jalapeno(s). De-seed them, if you prefer less heat, or just roughly chop them and add them to the food processor.
- Add the cashews and a drizzle of olive oil to the food processor, then process until you get a paste. Stop, scrape down the bowl, and add salt to taste. Process again, adding a bit more oil if needed to make the contents into a paste.
- Use immediately or refrigerate until ready to eat.