veal pistew

Pistou is a French cold sauce made from garlic, fresh basil, and olive oil. Some more modern versions of the recipe include grated Parmesan, pecorino or similar hard cheeses. Traditionally, the ingredients are crushed and mixed together in a mortar with a pestle, (pistou means pounded in the Provençal language). It is often confused with pesto with which it shares some of the same ingredients, the key difference being absence of pinoli (pine nuts), from pistou.

So, if you add pine nuts to pistou, you get pesto, or, you could call it pistou-pesto. Well, what ever. In the recipe below I add it to a stew, so the result is veal pistew.

pistou/pesto

• 6-7 fresh basil leaves
• 2 to 3 cloves of garlic
• ½ cup canned chopped tomatoes, drained
• 1 oz extra virgin olive oil
• ½ tsp <salt>
• ¼ cup Asiago cheese
• 1 oz pine nuts (or almonds)

pistew

• 12 oz veal stew meat, cubed
• 1 oz olive oil
• 1 cup libbity^* white beans, washed
• 1 tsp <salt>
• 4 cups water
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 medium potato, diced
• ¼ lb green beans, trimmed
• ¼ tsp ground black pepper
• ¼ cup lower G. I. pasta small shells

Purée all the pisto/pesto ingredients in a blender until smooth. Add a little (very little) water if needed.

In a stew pot, brown veal in the olive oil, add beans, <salt> and water. Bring to a boil and cook over low heat for 2 hours. Add onion, potato, pepper, and green beans, and continue to cook until potato is done, about 10 minutes. Add the dry pasta and water to correct the consistency to that of a stew. Cook another few minutes (see pasta package directions).

Add some of the broth to the pistou-pesto, stir, and return to the stew pot.

Serve in bowls.