Fresh basil pounded with garlic, pine nuts and olive oil into a green sauce that keeps for weeks under a slick of oil at the top of the jar. Salt to taste; pour over pasta, fold into beans, spoon onto bread. The base ingredient for a hundred quick meals.

The Genovese pesto in its strictest form requires Genovese basil, Sardinian pecorino, parmigiano reggiano, garlic from Vessalico, pine nuts from the Mediterranean and Ligurian olive oil, all pounded together by hand in a marble mortar. This vegan version skips the cheese and lets the basil carry the dish on its own; the trade-off is sharper, fresher, less fat-heavy.

The pine nuts need to be raw and pale, not toasted. Toasting pine nuts for pesto darkens the flavour in a way that's right for some dishes (a pasta with brown butter, say) and wrong for a Genovese, which is meant to read green and grassy.

Store in a sterilised jar with a layer of oil on top to seal out air, which is what turns pesto brown. Keeps for a fortnight in the fridge. Use it as a pasta sauce loosened with the cooking water, as a sandwich smear, or stirred through cooked white beans for an instant dinner.