Thai basil syrup

[cdh]

With the first hard freeze predicted for last night, earlier this week I took the final harvest of Thai Basil from my garden. Having more ice cube trays full of basil than I can predict using soon, I tried doing something else with it-- basil syrup. I blanched some basil, shocked it in ice water, ran it in the blender, made a simple syrup out of some of the blanching water and added it to the blender, gave it a whirl and poured everything through a reasonably fine strainer.

I've got a murky green syrup that has a lovely anise-y, basil-y complex herbal flavor. It is quite remniscent of herbal liqueurs... so I mixed some into a drink- a couple of dashes of thai basil syrup plus gin plus soda is very nice. Much more complex than you'd expect. The sweetness and herbal complexity remind me of chartreuse.

It would be better if I could strain it clear and get rid of the murk... but I've not got the equipment to accomplish that right now.

Edited November 8, 2007 by cdh (log)

[Danne]

Sounds nice.

If i would add something to your drink i would add:

Fresh strawberries, Muddled in the shaker.

The syrup

Gin

Lemonjuice

and maybe a dash of angostura bitter.

Shake and dubble strain into cocktailglas.

This one i really rekomend you to try:

1part Rasperry rum

1part Apple rum

1part Basilsyrup (depends on how strong u made it)

small pice of chilli.

squeze of lime.

Muddle the chilli in a shaker, shake with ice, Strain into whiskyglas, top with soda.

If you are going to try to make a new syrup i would recomend you to try it without blending the leaves. They becom a littel bit tart when they are getting destroyed.

[KatieLoeb]

Chris:

I usually have success just dropping the fresh leaves into the boiling syrup without blanching, letting it cool a bit and then buzzing it through the blender. Allow to cool overnight to continue steeping with maximal surface area exposed, and then strain through a chinoise or fine mesh strainer.

Make sure the syrup isn't too hot when you run the blender. It expands exponentially and explodes all over your kitchen if you don't. Ask not how I know this. There are still green sticky streaks on my kitchen ceiling...

[cdh]

My method was designed to keep the basil from boiling (or hotter) temperatures except for the 10 seconds of blanching. I wanted to keep the volatile aromatics from escaping into the air.

To recap my method:

1) blanch and ice

2) buzz with a bit of sugar and cold water

3) add sugar to hot blanching water (to recapture flavor leached out in the blanching process) and dissolve as much as possible.

4) add some of the hot (but not boiling) syrup to blender and blitz a bit more

5) strain

6) (because it was a bit thin and more than my bottle could hold) boil 1/5 of the volume down to a real syrup, dilute with enough water to get the temperature back below 212 and re-add. Shake vigorously and then refrigerate.