Basil pesto alla Genovese on spaghetti

Drop the pasta into salted boiling water first; the basil starts browning once cut, so make the pesto right before eating. The spaghetti takes 10 minutes.

Knife method: peel the garlic and chop it, then chop in the pine nuts as fine as possible.

Bunch the basil tight, chop it in, and chop everything as fine as possible.

Add the grated pecorino, sprinkle over a pinch of coarse salt, and grind everything against the board with the side of the knife so the salt smooths the nuts to a paste and squeezes green juice from the basil.

Put it in a little bowl and mix in enough olive oil to get a saucy consistency.

Drain the pasta, not all the way, and stir in the pesto with a little pasta water.

Variation: mortar and pestle. Grind a peeled garlic clove with a pinch of coarse salt and a tiny pinch of sugar until virtually liquefied.

Variation: grind in a handful of pine nuts, untoasted, to a nut butter.

Variation: chop the basil a little first, grind it in, add a big handful of grated pecorino and the olive oil, then switch to a wooden spoon to finish grinding to a paste.

Variation: drain the pasta retaining a little starchy water and stir in the pesto.

Variation: to keep it green, before the pasta goes in drop the basil into the salted boiling water for about 10 seconds, lift it into ice water, then squeeze it dry and chop it very fine.

Variation: grind garlic with a pinch of salt and sugar to a paste in the granite mortar, add pine nuts, the chopped blanched basil, grated cheese and enough olive oil, finishing with the wooden spoon; loosen with more oil or water when stirring into the pasta.