What do you do when your garden is heaving with rocket, just about to flower and bolt into seed? The answer is Rocket Pesto – a way of conserving this lovely taste of summer for six months or so.

You have given everyone you know bunches of Rocket. You have harvested and eaten it at nearly every meal. You love its slightly bitter, peppery and stimulating taste but it only seems to last for the first bit of the summer. Here is a great way of preserving it to last the whole summer long.
Rocket ( Eruca Sativa) is a member of the Brassicacae family, so called because of its tendency to bolt before your very eyes. This family of vegetables are well known for their anti-cancer properties when cooked well ie steamed or eaten raw. Erucin is a cancer chemopreventive agent made from Rocket salad! You will need: Rocket, crushed garlic cloves, powdered Italian type cheese, lemon (and lime) rind, walnuts, pine nuts, olive oil. (Sorry I don’t really do amounts – look at the pictures !) Firstly harvest the rocket and give it a wash. Then go through and take out the heavy stems and anything else you might have picked by mistake. You should end up with a nice pile of fresh rocket. Chop it up so that you can feed it into a liquidiser.
Then put all the other ingredients in a pile, except for the oil. Now the tricky bit is to feed the ingredients into the liquidiser while keeping the mix lubricated with the oil so it liquidises. When it ‘sticks’, don’t burn out the motor or shake the liquidiser! Simply take off the lid (waiting until the rotor has stopped), push aside the leafy stuff and pour in a bit more oil until the liquidiser works again.
Bottle the green mixture up in sterile glass jars and pour a bit more olive oil in the top to seal the air out. Rocket, also known as Arugula is full of excellent anti-oxidants so use some good quality virgin olive oil to preserve it. You can keep this jar sealed in a fridge for up to six months. Green salad leaves contain the light converting machinery of nature. Rocket is high in phytonutrients, vitamins A (9%) and C (5%), beta carotene, fibre, folate (2%) and calcium (3%). Research in Saudi Arabia gives Rocket properties as an anti gastric ulcer agent.
All you need now is a plate of freshly made pasta, drop in a touch of butter (oil or margerine) and a few teaspoons of your home-made Rocket Pesto and stir onto a warmed plate. Sprinkle to taste with a grated cheese of your choice, a bit of chopped parsley and be generous with the black pepper. Hey Pesto!
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