Conscious Choice: Basil Rules

August 2002 | Cooking with the Seasons

Basil Rules

by Terra Brockman

I’m half Italian, and, like any good Italian, I hate rules — particularly in the kitchen. But every now and then my Germanic half comes to the fore and I find myself devising rules that others absolutely must follow. So here, in a curious culinary Axis relationship, are my Germanic rules for that most Italian of herbs, basil. If you follow them, all your meals featuring basil will take on a bright and beautiful life of their own.

Rule 1: Use only the freshest basil. The fresher it is, the better it is. The fragrance of basil is never as seductive as when it is first plucked from a live plant and eaten raw, as quickly as possible. This is why you should think about having a pot of basil of your own — on the kitchen windowsill or in your backyard. The next best thing is to get basil from a local farmer at a farmer’s market or through a csa. This basil will have much more flavor than anything you find in a store.

Rule 2: Don’t cook basil — don’t even heat it up if you can help it. When adding basil to a pasta sauce or a pizza, do so only at the last minute, while tossing the pasta or after the pizza has emerged from the oven. Basil pesto, too, should always be used raw, never warmed up or cooked.

Rule 3: Stay away from knives. Don’t cut the basil — either with a knife or with a food processor. The cut edges will blacken and the overall flavor will be diminished. Instead, simply use whole leaves, or tear large leaves into small pieces with your hands before putting into a pasta dish or a salad or on top of roasted vegetables. (I confess that I often do use a food processor in making pesto, but purists will tell you that true pesto is attained only by using a mortar and pestle to crush the basil leaves.)

Rule 4: Use basil only in the summer. This relates back to Rule 1, bringing us full circle. Basil is the ultimate summer herb. Its rich perfume evokes warm sunny days and mouthwatering combinations with summer vegetables — tomatoes, zucchini, and peppers. Sure, you can get it year-round in the grocery store, but, like tomatoes, basil tends to be insipid when grown in a greenhouse or flown in from California. If you buy it out of season, you are sure to be disappointed — not only by the basil itself, but by the sad excuses for summer vegetables that you attempt to serve with it. You may also be disappointed in yourself. For if you buy basil (or any produce) out of season, you implicate yourself in the waste of fossil fuels, in the pollution of air and water, and, generally, in the exploitation of farm workers. So buy locally grown basil in season — or wait until its season returns. Some things in life are definitely worth the wait. Basil is one of them.

And here we are at last, in the high season of basil. When people think basil, they most often think pesto. A rich, fragrant pesto is indeed a wonderful thing (recipes follow to prove it), but there is much more in the basil pantheon than pesto. Basil enhances almost every summer vegetable. Tear some leaves and scatter them over a tomato salad or add to a tomato sauce just before serving. Make a basil butter for corn on the cob. Sprinkle on green bean salads, or roasted eggplant, zucchini, or peppers. For more summer fun, experiment with the many scented and colored basils that farmers are now bringing to market, including lemon, anise, Thai, cinnamon, and purple basils.

Italian Basil

By far the most widely available basil in the United States is the delicately perfumed Genovese basil, originally grown around the port city of Genoa, Italy. This is so common that it is generally thought of as regular or Italian basil. And it is perfect for pesto or for a Calabrese tomato salad — a simple and beautiful combination of slices of tomato, fresh whole-milk mozzarella, and basil leaves — drizzled with a fine olive oil.

Pesto

According to Marcella Hazan, doyenne of Italian cooking, you should never blanch the basil leaves you use for pesto. But many recent American recipes recommend that you do blanch the leaves, to retain the herb’s brilliant green color. The great debate is really about which is more important, color or taste, with Americans going for appearance and the Italians not minding what color it is as long as it tastes good. Marcella says that "pesto is never cooked, or heated." She also claims that "It is unlikely that any pesto will taste quite like the one made with the magically scented basil of the Italian Riviera." Perhaps. But I’d like to invite her to taste the ones I make from the magically scented basil of local Illinois farms.

Marcella Hazan’s Classic Pesto

(from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, Knopf, 1992)

2 cups tightly packed fresh basil leaves

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

3 Tablespoons pine nuts

2 garlic cloves, peeled

pinch of salt

1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano

2 Tablespoons freshly grated Romano cheese

3 Tablespoons butter at room temperature

1. Wash the basil in cold water and pat dry.

2. Put basil, olive oil, pine nuts, garlic, and an ample pinch of salt in the food processor and process until creamy.

3. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the grated cheeses. Then mix in the softened butter. Serve on pasta or vegetables.

Emerald Green Basil Pesto

4 cups packed fresh basil leaves

1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted until golden, cooled, and chopped fine

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan

2 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Have a bowl of ice water ready to plunge the basil into after blanching. In a saucepan of boiling salted water, blanch the basil, a handful at a time, for two seconds, transferring with a slotted spoon to the bowl of ice water.

2. Drain and pat dry. In a food processor purée the basil with the remaining ingredients until smooth, and season with salt and pepper.

Pesto Trapanese

In her excellent history/cookbook Pomp and Sustenance: Twenty-Five Centuries of Sicilian Food, Mary Taylor Simeti says that this pasta sauce originated in Trapani but probably was introduced by the Arabs because it depends on ground almonds for texture, a common technique in classical Arabic cooking.

6 garlic cloves, peeled

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup fresh basil leaves

1 cup blanched almonds, chopped coarse

4 ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped

1/2 cup olive oil

freshly ground black pepper to taste

11/2 pounds uncooked spaghetti

1. In a mortar or food processor, grind the garlic, salt, and basil into a paste. Add the almonds little by little and then the tomatoes.

2. When all the ingredients are reduced to a pulp, add the oil and the pepper.

3. In a large pot of boiling water, cook the pasta until it is al dente, drain, and toss in a serving bowl with the pesto. Serve at once.

Lemon Basil

Lemon basil, with its bright, fresh essence of lemon or orange blossoms, gives you citrus flavor without the pucker, and it’s perfect in all sorts of salads and desserts. The lemony aroma and taste of this basil is due to a high content of citral and the flowery fragrance of linalool. Its lemon flair is accentuated by basil’s unmistakable spiciness. Pasta, seafood, salad greens, or fresh fruit salads come to life with chopped lemon basil, as do slices of vine-ripened tomatoes drizzled with olive oil. For a simple dinner, toss pasta in a summery lemon basil pesto topped with shrimp marinated with garlic, white wine, and olive oil.

Thai Basil

Thai basil has a spicy, anise-like bite. It is perfect in stir-fries or as an accent to salads. You can also use it to make a spicy pesto — or try this recipe for a Thai-inspired chicken dish.

Thai Basil Chicken

1 pound skinned, boned chicken breasts

2 Tablespoons peanut or olive oil

4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

4 green onions, chopped

4 hot Thai (or other red Asian) chili peppers, chopped fine

3/4 cup finely chopped fresh Thai basil leaves

2 Tablespoons fish sauce

1. Put the chicken breasts in freezer until firm but not frozen solid. Cut the meat into tiny slivers.

2. Heat up a wok, add the oil, and stir-fry garlic and green onions until tender but not brown, about one to two minutes.

3. Add the chili peppers and cook, stirring, about one minute more.

4. Add the chicken and stir-fry until cooked through.

5. Remove the wok from the heat. Stir in basil and fish sauce, mixing thoroughly. Serve over rice.

Terra Brockman is the director of The Land Connection Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving farmland and promoting small-scale, diversified, organic agriculture in Illinois. Visit www.thelandconnection.org or call 309-965-2407 to learn how to get involved.

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: