The king of herbs

Hands down, the king of the sum­mer gar­den is basil, Oci­mum basilicum. It’s a sta­ple in Ital­ian cui­sine and other cul­tures around the world. Most of us can’t wait until the basil is big enough to begin pick­ing and cre­at­ing recipes.

Basil is a mem­ber of the mint fam­ily with fla­vors that have a spicy “minty” over­tone. It’s an easy herb to grow either from seed or a plant. The most pop­u­lar is the sweet basil, “Gen­ovese’ some­times called Ital­ian, or large leaf. It’s my favorite for mak­ing pestos, sauces and the ulti­mate dish of toma­toes and moz­zarella cheese. Basil comes in vari­eties that have pur­ple leaves, “Pur­ple Ruf­fles” or “Opal” and red­dish color “Red Rubin.” Mild fla­vored basils are lime, lemon or cin­na­mon. A few vari­eties have a spicy taste, such as, “Holy,” “Thai” and “Siam Queen.”

Most vari­eties grow to about 15 inches tall, but the Gen­ovese basil can get four feet tall. Some vari­eties like ‘Globe’ or ‘Greek Mini’ stay very small and ‘Colum­nar’ is just that, a nar­row col­umn of basil. Don’t give into the temp­ta­tion to fer­til­ize basil too much. You will be rewarded with large leaves but less fla­vor. Basil needs about 6 to 8 hours of sun to grow to its full potential.

My best advice for basils is “to use or lose it.” The leaves need to be pinched off or clipped as the plant grows. Once you begin to pinch back the leaves the bush will branch out and be a lovely bushy herb in your gar­den. When the basil begins to go to seed it can change the flavor.

Basil is used in about every type of food prepa­ra­tion over the sum­mer when it is at its best. Basil does not dry well, it turns a brown­ish color once it starts to dry out. Some folks have had suc­cess with hang­ing it upside down to dry, but I sure have not. An easy way to pre­serve basil is to chop it up and place in water, pour into ice cube trays and freeze. You can use the cubes in soups, stews and sauces through­out the win­ter by toss­ing in one or two.

Pesto is the all time favorite use of fresh gar­den basil. Since it takes quite a bit of basil to make a batch, take advan­tage of the sum­mer wind­fall. The clas­sic Ital­ian pesto is made with “Gen­ovese” or another large leaf vari­ety such as “Mam­moth” or “Valentino.” These vari­eties do have large leaves but my per­sonal opin­ion is the fla­vor suf­fers a bit, and I still make most of my pesto out of “Gen­ovese.” Using basil in pesto and sauces is the clas­sic use in the kitchen but don’t stop there. Use in may­on­naise for your BLT, on pasta, chicken salad or step out of the box and try basil, choco­late chip ice cream.

Remem­ber basil is a warm weather plant. If the tem­per­a­tures fall below 60 degrees, the plant does not grow well, and with sev­eral nights in the 50s the plant will suf­fer sig­nif­i­cantly. If basil feels the tem­per­a­ture get­ting close to 32 it will begin its slow death. At 32 degrees it will be gone.

How to man­age an abun­dance of basil:

1. Cut stems and put in a vase of water on your kitchen counter and it will last about a week.

2. Cut leaves off stems and layer between paper tow­els and place in refrigerator.

3. Pesto: make your favorite recipe of pesto and freeze in small amounts or in ice cube trays. Remove from the trays after it is frozen and pack­age into vac­uum sealed bags for pesto all win­ter long. Note: I don’t add the cheese, nuts or gar­lic when I make frozen pesto. I like it added fresh when I actu­ally use it through­out the win­ter months, it gives a fresher taste.

4. Basil oil: 2 cups of basil leaves, chopped and 1/4 cup of olive oil. Process in a food proces­sor until smooth. Freeze in small con­tain­ers or ice cube trays (fol­low pro­ce­dure above), if you want to use the oil imme­di­ately, store in the refrig­er­a­tor for up to 1 week. Use the oil in stews, soups, sauces and to top veg­eta­bles or pasta.

5. Basil vine­gar: fill a mason jar with basil leaves. Bruise them with a wooden spoon to release the oils. Fill the jar with white wine vine­gar or cider vine­gar, cover and let set for 2 weeks. Strain out the basil leaves. Pour into a dec­o­ra­tive bot­tle. Note: the pur­ple or red basils will turn the vine­gars a beau­ti­ful color of lavender.

Susan Liechty is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.

Posted by Master Gardener on Jun 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.