With its red-veined leaves, sorrel adds color to any salad. But you can also use it to conjure up wonderful pestos. I came up with this recipe for a blood sorrel pesto with walnuts myself – to get the rich harvest under control. As with all pestos, the preparation is simple. The blood sorrel pesto is great as a pasta sauce and also tastes delicious with naturally roasted meat.
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Blood Sorrel Pesto with Walnuts has a shelf life
Thanks to the oil and lime juice (acid), the pesto will keep in the fridge for about a week if you put it in a clean glass jar. Unprocessed blood dock, on the other hand, becomes soggy rather quickly and quickly loses its vitamins – similar to spinach.
The flavor of blood dock pesto
Blood sorrel tastes much milder than the related sorrel. This recipe, it enhances the taste of the walnuts, which already comes out strongly due to the walnut oil used. With this blood sorrel pesto, you get a nutty and yet gentle spice paste. The aroma of the sorrel can be made stronger by increasing the amount of lime juice because it is already slightly acidic. In any case, this pesto tastes completely different than the mint pesto, which is also available here on the blog. I was amazed at how great the variation in taste can be with these sauces.
And here it comes:
Recipe for Red Sorrel Pesto with Walnuts
Ingredients (for 4 servings):
- 30 g walnut kernels
- 100 g blood dock
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 lime
- 160 ml walnut oil
- 50g Parmesan
- Salt
Preparation:
- Finely chop the walnuts and toast them in a pan without fat
- Wash the sorrel and spin dry thoroughly, cut the leaves into small pieces
- Peel the garlic and also cut it into small pieces
- Squeeze the juice out of the lime
- Place the blood sorrel and garlic in a blender, add the oil and lime juice, and puree until smooth.
- Finely chop the walnut kernels
- Grate the Parmesan, add to the pesto, and season everything with salt
Sorrel: Attractive as a herb and ornamental plant
I discovered blood sorrel for my garden last year to fill in the gaps in the lettuce bed left by the voracious snails. “Rumex sanguineus” got its name from the striking red leaf veins. Vegetarians may be more familiar with the name Hain-Ampfer.
The knotweed plant is extremely rewarding in cultivation. It grows in sun and shade, is not demanding on soil, and is also hardy. You can also cultivate blood sorrel in a bucket on the balcony and then it has a nice splash of color, especially in autumn. Supposedly, blood dock in a pot doesn’t like the midday sun. It can be sown up to July (!) and harvested up to November. More cultivation info is available online, but as said, you don’t need a green thumb to grow this plant.
Blood sorrel should not be heated. It makes a good addition to a salad, but it shouldn’t be the main ingredient. In general, you can use it, like parsley, to spice up all kinds of dishes.
This flavorful pesto is great as a pasta sauce but also goes very well with meat.
Court: main dish
Countries & Regions: European
portions: 4
calories per serving: 400 kcal
- 30 G Walnut kernels
- 100 G blood dock
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 lime
- 160 ml walnut oil
- 50 G Parmesan
- Salt
- Finely chop the walnuts and toast them in a pan without fat
- Wash and dry sorrel thoroughly, and cut leaves into small pieces
- Peel the garlic and also cut it into small pieces
- Squeeze the juice out of the lime
- Place the blood sorrel and garlic in a blender, add the oil and lime juice and puree until smooth
- Finely chop the walnut kernels
- Add shaved Parmesan to the pesto and season with salt
Filled into glasses, the pesto keeps in the fridge for about 1 week.
Blood Sorrel: The red leaf veins give it its name
