The real Genoese recipe for Trenette al pesto with potato and green beans.
How to make trenette al pesto
Only use pasta made with durum wheat flour.
Choose some small, soft green beans which are not stringy and some red potatoes or other potatoes which do not crumble when cooked.
Cut the potato into thin slices (about half a centimetre thick).
Heat enough water in a pan according to the quantity of pasta you are cooking (the proportion of pasta to water should be 100:1000 so 1 litre of water is needed for every 100g of pasta). Bring the water to the boil. Add the salt to the water only once it is boiling.
Put the trenette, beans and potato slices into the boiling water. These ingredients usually take 8/10 minutes to cook that is the same cooking time as the pasta. Therefore you can put everything in together. If the cooking time of the pasta shown on the packet is different, adjust the times accordingly. Make sure that the water keeps boiling for the whole time when cooking the pasta.
The consistency of the pasta absolutely must be al dente (slightly hard); those who prefer pasta still hard in the centre should drain it at least a couple of minutes before the recommended cooking time.
Put a few spoonfuls of pesto in the bottom of a bowl which is appropriate for mixing and serving the pasta. You can make the pesto a little runnier by adding a little of the boiling water which you cooked the pasta in.
It’s always a good idea to put aside a little of the water in which you cooked the pasta, in case you need to further dilute the pesto.
Drain the pasta, beans and potato slices and tip all of them into the bowl. If necessary, add some more pesto on top of the pasta and a drizzle of Ligurian extra virgin olive oil DOP or similar.
Mix the pasta well to season the pasta evenly and serve it hot.
Enjoy your meal!
The same procedure can be used to make other pasta recipes with pesto.
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