Basil

Had dinner with friends on Saturday night and our hosts had a most envious basil bush in their herb garden. After listening to me ramble on about all the cooking possibilities for most of the evening, I woke up the next morning to find a huge bag of the stuff on my door step; I am loving the fact that my kitchen smells a little bit like Italy and I have lots planned for it:



Basil Oil - ridiculously easy but so useful to have in the kitchen. I will be using it to sex-up pastas, risottos and salads, also for homemade pizzas and bruschetta.

Pesto - Mmmm pesto. Pesto does not need to be limited to pasta or gnocchi, I'll be using it as a coating for chicken in salads, using it in soups, stuffing chicken breasts, again bruschetta. YUM!

Also try - serving basil with mozzarella and tomato drizzled with olive oil for a simple salad, pasta salads, stuffing meat etc

Basil Oil
Take a clean jar or bottle and losely pack with basil leaves, pour over olive oil. Unlike other flavoured oils when using soft herbs like basil you need cold olive oil rather than warm. After a couple of weeks strain and rebottle.

Pesto
2 cloves of garlic
500ml basil leaves compact but don't squish them down too much
50g pinenuts
50g Parmesan cheese, grated
150ml olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

In a blender whizz together the garlic and basil, then add the pinenuts and parmesan whizz again. Then pour in the oil with the motor running. Season to taste.

It is best kept in the fridge, it will last longer if you make sure there is always a thin layer of oil at the top of the jar.

Tomato Salsa - chiffonade your basil, then add to concasse tomatoes, garlic and finely chopped shalots with a good glug of olive oil.*


* Excuse the cookery lingo:
Chiffonade - lay individual basil leaves on top of one another then roll up from the stem end and slice thinly
Concasse - cut the tomato into quarters, remove the seeds (a teaspoon is excellent for this) and then finely dice.)

Flavoured Oil and Pontack (elderberry) Sauce

Well, hello, I told myself that today I would write my first proper blog entry so got up this morning with great aspirations of the things I would create today and write all about them. However, I wasn't expecting that my first adventure into blogging would be one that resulted in my kitchen being covered in olive oil.

The ill-fated oil, fig 1

I was in the mood for some preserving this morning so was inspired to use up some chillies that were hanging around after I made a curry at the weekend. (Said curry included my own naan bread which although tasted fabulous took a hell of a lot of work for a meal that I’m afraid to say we gobbled in 15 minutes). I decided to make a flavoured oil with the chillies, a little garlic and some peppercorns. Very quick job, looks jolly pretty in the bottle, done. Then, I thought ‘my, my what a pretty bottle I will photograph this for my first blog entry’. Long story short - in trying to get the perfect angle and balancing the bottle upon various kitchen items the bloody thing fell to the floor, covering the table and kitchen floor in oil as the (evidently not sealed tightly enough) lid had come off. Today I learnt a valuable lesson that I am very bad at photography but on a plus side the oak table got a nice oiling.

Pontack Sauce, fig 2

Thankfully the Pontack Sauce went a bit more smoothly. Yesterday I went out for a walk on the hunt for elderberries for the sauce. Turns out although elder trees seem to be ruddy everywhere, they all seem to scuttle off into hiding the second you actually go looking for the things. So after much trudging about in the damp weather trying to find those purple clouds of berries hanging in the trees, nothing. But of course as I said these things are only around when you’re not looking, so low and behold the second I gave up the hunt I found an abundance of the things.

So after stripping them from the stalk they were popped in the oven with white wine vinegar (circa 500g berries needs 500ml vinegar) to cook on a very low temperature overnight. Having strained off the liquid they were cooked with spices (ginger root, peppercorns, mace, cloves - see fig 2) making a stunning coloured sauce which I reduced down and bottled. Smells and looks beautiful, folklore says Pontack Sauce shouldn’t be used for seven years….sounds mildly excessive but I’ll leave it a few months at least.


Chilli Oil, 250ml

250ml decent quality olive oil (not worth spending a huge amount on)
A 250ml sterile bottle
3 – 4 chillies, fresh or dried

Cut the chillies in half, lengthways, and pop in the bottle. Heat your oil in a pan to about 40 degrees centigrade. Then pour over the chillies and seal. Leave to infuse for about a fortnight then strain and rebottle.

Pontack Sauce, 250ml

700g elderberries stripped from the stalk (you can use a fork for this)
700ml white wine vinegar
250g shallots, peeled and roughly sliced
An inch of ginger root, bruised
8 cloves
1 blade of mace
1 tbsp peppercorns
1 star anise

Put the berries in a oven proof dish with the vinegar and cook for 6 hours in a very low oven, about 120 degrees centigrade. Leave to cool then strain through a sieve using the back of a spoon to press out as much juice as possible. In a saucepan put your liquid and all remaining ingredients and bring to the boil and keep at a gentle boil for 20 minutes. Strain through the sieve again and if you would like it thicker return to the pan and reduce. Bottle in a sterilised bottle and if you can resist, keep it for seven years!