Pesto

Loosen with the starchy water or it clumps. That water is the eighth ingredient.

Cubes go in the same pot as the pasta. Starch on starch, sauce in between.

The third thing in that pot. Squeak against soft, and the herb hits both.

Acid cuts the oil, glutamate props up the cheese. Summer in two moves.

Pine-nut fat and basil already agree with buffalo milk. Skip the tomato.

Watery flesh has no flavour. Pesto is oil, salt and aroma in one spoon.

Under the skin before roasting, so the fat carries basil into the meat.

Waxy and warm, so the oil clings instead of pooling in the bowl.

Sweet shellfish against grassy bitterness, with the pine nut rounding it.

Acid stops the oil coating the palate and keeps the basil from going dull.

The cream centre thins the sauce as it splits. Texture doing all the work.

Basil and stone fruit share linalool. Salt the pesto and it reads as dressing.

Ligurian shepherd logic: fatty roast under raw green sauce, no mint needed.

Seared sweetness under grassy oil; nut fat sits where the roe would be.

Basil linalool and berry furaneol. Parmesan salt is what makes it land.

Cocoa butter and pine nut are bland fats. Basil gives the pair a top note.