Robert's Pesto

Ingredients:

20g garlic
70g basil leaves
50g pine nuts
70g grated Bulgarian feta
42g olive oil

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1. Using a mezzaluna or a chef's knife on a large cutting board, roughly chop 3-5 cloves of garlic.


2. Add a handful of basil leaves to the garlic and chop until basil is broken down into smaller bits. Continually scrape your pile of ingredients back together and chop down.


3. Add another handful of basil leaves and chop down.

4. Add remaining handful of basil leaves and chop down.

5. Add half the pine nuts to the basil/garlic pile and chop until the nuts are broken down significantly and incorporated with the other ingredients.


6. Add the remaining pine nuts to the pile and repeat the previous step but chop even more until all ingredients bind together as a very rough mealy paste. When you think you are done, chop more.


7. Transfer chopped ingredients to a small bowl. Grate feta into bowl and mix with a spoon to incorporate feta. Smooth out mixture so it is flat and level on top.

8. Pour olive oil on top of ingredients and stir in if you are going to serve, or leave the layer of oil on top if you plan to stir and serve later.

Notes:
Bulgarian feta has a very distinct salty creamy taste, so keep that in mind with substitutions because Greek feta is not the same thing.
If using a food processor, use the same procedure as above, use only short pulses and scrape down sides frequently.