Ideas for Basil

The Late Night Gourmet

The Late Night Gourmet

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I'm someone who loves basil. I use it a lot, and in fact I just made some pesto. I was at the market yesterday, and I saw a massive bag that was labeled as "mint" for cheap, so I grabbed it, thinking I'd enjoy some tabbouleh this weekend.

I got home and realized that it was actually basil. I had enough mint to make the recipe i wanted (the sesame meatballs I posted earlier), but now I had a huge amount of basil, and questions of what to do with it.

Pesto is always my go-to use for basil. But, I just made pesto a few days ago, and I don't think I need more (unless it freezes well, which I'm skeptical about). I used some of it this morning for a breakfast burrito...it was a lot more than I'd normally use - and it was delicious - but it barely put a dent in it.

So...if there are any ideas for basil that I can make in the next week, please post them here!
 
It turns out that it is possible to freeze pesto. That will be my less fun backup plan if I can't find better ideas. But, here's how it's done:

You pour the pesto into ice cube trays. drizzle a little bit of olive oil on top to prevent discoloration...

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...and then, pop out the pesto cubes and store in a zipper bag:

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I use basil in Momma Maroni's meatballs. A friends dish where he used potato slices, tomato slices and basil leaves to make a shingled dish in a baking pan (potatoes were partially cooked first). Margherita pizza, Caprese salad (which we sometimes substitute roasted red bell peppers for the tomatoes) and what I call rolatini. Most of my Italian style tomato based sauces have some or a lot of basil in them.
 
I'm guessing you mean Italian basil, or the Basil Genovese type, not Thai basil.
 
What's the dish? Thai basil is usually used in lesser amounts than Italian as it's pretty strong; well, unless the other ingredients are strong as well. It's about balance.
I wonder how a Thai basil pesto would work?

Maybe using peanuts instead of pignoli, and sesame oil instead of olive, and maybe dried shrimp or fish sauce instead of Pecorino? Plus garlic, of course. Maybe some lemongrass?

I see an experiment coming...
 
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We have a lot of herbs in our garden, my wife picks and freezes basil in bags. I use it all the time. We were lucky in that we are near winter and still picking. I make 2 litre containers of pasta sauce using basil and my oregano. I freeze for winter. Also I have some in my freezer in kitchen. I last used making samosas. Love the smell of basil just rubbed in my hand. Nice in a Thai salad as well.

Russ
 
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Pad Gai Krapow...Sort of. I’ve picked off bits of my massive amount of basil to use in other things, but by the time I got to it to make this, most of it had blackened. Worst of all, the pesto I’ve made previously had turned, and I didn’t have enough basil left to make a new batch.

But, fortunately, there was plenty for me to make this. This typically uses Thai basil, which is a bit different from sweet/Italian basil, but this really worked. If you look closely, you’ll see sesame seeds. That’s right: this is also being entered into the recipe contest. I also used sesame oil.

Another non-standard thing I did was I decided to grill the pork chops before making the rest of the recipe. They were good enough that I almost ate them straight off the grill. You can see I only partly cooked them, so they wouldn’t over cook in the pan. I’ll definitely make my stir-fries this way from now on, weather permitting.

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