Over the past few years, our perspective on traveling has changed a lot. Nowadays, when we travel, we like to experience the local culture rather than hitting all the tourist attractions. We want to eat like the locals, shop at their farmers market, and hang out where they would take family and friends from out of town. For those very reasons, our recent New York trip is one of my favorites to date. We only scheduled one tourist attraction per morning then tried to hit the local hang-outs for the remaining of the day.
With my love for seasonal produce, I knew that a farmers market visit was a must. A few months before our trip, I scoured the internet for farmers markets near our hotel and found quite a few. With the Union Square Greenmarket walking distance from our place, I started stalking their Instagram account to see what’s available. As luck would have it, I saw one of my favorite alliums, ramps, appearing on their feed and resolved to bring some back to California. In case you don’t know what ramps are, here’s a little tidbit as to why they’re so popular.
After the 2800 mile journey from NYC to San Diego, I was elated that the ramps made it to my kitchen without any issues. If someone had told me a year ago that we would be visiting New York in the spring and bringing home some ramps, I would have a flabbergasted look. So here we are with this culinary treasure and plenty of recipes to showcase them! Last year, when I made a ramp and hazelnut pesto, I was able to enjoy it with pizza, pasta, toast, roasted chicken, and even fish. The hazelnut was a bit more time consuming to de-skin so I decided to make a ramp and pistachio pesto this time. We went through the first batch of pesto in a few days, using it as a spread for toast to enjoy with breakfast and lunch and will make a few more batches before the season comes to an end.
If you like pesto, check out these recipes: wild ramp pesto pizza with asparagus and peas, ramp and hazelnut pesto, and pesto sandwich.
If you try this recipe, please let us know how you like it! Leave a comment, rate it, and don’t forget to tag a photo #beyondsweetandsavory on Instagram. We truly appreciate your feedback and incorporate them to continually improve our recipes.
Ramp and pistachio pesto
Ingredients
- ½ cup shelled unsalted pistachios, finely ground
- 2 oz ramp leaves, roughly chopped
- ½ cup olive oil and extra for top layer
- 2 tbsps freshly squeezed lemon juice
- ¼ cup of grated Parmesan cheese
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Use a pestle and mortar to pound the chopped ramps into a paste.
- Add the ground pistachios, olive oil, lemon juice and pound to mix together.
- Mix in the Parmesan cheese.
- Season with salt to taste.
- Transfer the pesto to the clean lidded glass jar. Add a thin layer of olive oil to help preserve it. Store in the coldest part of your fridge for up to a week or freeze it for up to three months. Thaw when needed.
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