Infused Olive Oil

[Vision]

Anyone have a good recipe?

Am looking for combinations of herbs that infuse well together in oil. Where the sum becomes better than the parts.

My favorites are rosemary, sage, garlic. Basil, red pepper, and garlic.

[lesliec]

Hi, Vision.

The most important thing is to get the oil hot enough to kill any bugs. 90 celsius is the target.

My experience so far is limited to rosemary and sage, but the technique is simplicity itself. Use a good-quality oil - whether European or local for me depends largely on how much I want to spend. Heat the oil (small batches - 500ml or so - are probably easiest to control) and a good sprig of whichever herb you're using gently until it reaches the target temperature. At this point, after letting it cool a little, I fished my herb out of the oil, forced it into a bottle and poured the oil in on top. However, somebody in another thread suggested discarding the original herb and filtering the oil into a bottle containing a fresh sprig. This has three advantages; it's MUCH easier to get a fresh, cold piece of something to cooperate in going into a narrow bottle-mouth (the 'cooked' sprig will be crunchy and its leaves will break), it's easier to get the herb staying pretty once it's in, and you'll almost certainly get a slightly stronger infusion of flavour. I haven't tried this technique yet, but it's how I'll be doing my next batch.

It's also nice to attach a personalised label to the finished bottle - mine has a background image of the relevant herb, with its name (in both English and Italian - you choose your languages!) and a line to the effect that the final product comes from my kitchen and my wife's garden. If you're making this for your own enjoyment or for gifts and not to sell, I don't believe there would be any regulations about labelling you'd have to comply with.

Good luck - I'll look forward to hearing how yours turns out.

Bye,

Leslie

[Lisa Shock]

You may wish to check out THIS thread on infused oils and food safety.

In general, it is best to make and consume them on the same day.

[Raoul Duke]

Try this resource:

www.oliveoilsource.com

The left hand column under Health and Recipes has info on infusing oils, as flavored oils.