topic Re: Purple Basil in Community Spirit

Purple Basil

*crikey*mate* — Fri, 02 May 2014 04:14:45 GMT

Has anyone ever used it to make Pesto?

Was it any good? Did you make any adjustments to your recipe?

Re: Purple Basil

boris1gary — Fri, 02 May 2014 04:28:28 GMT

@*crikey*mate* wrote:
Has anyone ever used it to make Pesto?

Was it any good? Did you make any adjustments to your recipe?

no but basil is my fave herb, if you do use the purple one let us know how it goes because it is pretty.

Re: Purple Basil

*crikey*mate* — Fri, 02 May 2014 04:42:44 GMT

@boris1gary wrote:
@*crikey*mate* wrote:
Has anyone ever used it to make Pesto?

Was it any good? Did you make any adjustments to your recipe?
no but basil is my fave herb, if you do use the purple one let us know how it goes because it is pretty.

It looks amazing eh?

I love basil too, any particular type which is your favourite? I saw about 10 different varities in the last few days, I never knew there were so many!

Only ever knew Basil and Purple basil, but never used the purple basil for anything other than garnish. But will experiment with it over the next few weeks as I just bought a few Purple basil Plants.

but they even had basil Mint? I'm like - what's the point in that? Not really too sure what to do with THAT one, except maybe a sorbet or something?

Oh, and I found some black chervil. (oh, and there are 7 different types of chervil too - I never knew that either - I like it cos it looks beautiful and delicate, never actually used iot for flavour and never anticipated that anyone would actually eat it LOL

Re: Purple Basil

julie-in-oz2 — Fri, 02 May 2014 04:46:35 GMT

I didn't know it came in purple.

Did you buy it or are you growing it? Does it taste the same?

Will be looking for it on my next grocery shop.

Re: Purple Basil

julie-in-oz2 — Fri, 02 May 2014 04:48:06 GMT

Just saw that you bought the plants.

Anyone seen it in the stores?

Re: Purple Basil

boris1gary — Fri, 02 May 2014 04:56:22 GMT

crikey, just the ordinary green one, I used to see the Thai basil everywhere until i wanted to use it, now i can't find it anywhere.

Re: Purple Basil

cherry*135 — Fri, 02 May 2014 05:16:15 GMT

Purple basil would be OK with same recipe. It has a lovely scent, I remember buying sone once and the nice smell wafting around in the car on the way home.

Re: Purple Basil

*crikey*mate* — Fri, 02 May 2014 05:41:54 GMT

@julie-in-oz2 wrote:

Just saw that you bought the plants.

Anyone seen it in the stores?

I bought it at Masters which is sort of like a Bunnings.

but there is some on eBay atm too

Re: Purple Basil

*crikey*mate* — Fri, 02 May 2014 05:45:18 GMT

@boris1gary wrote:
crikey, just the ordinary green one, I used to see the Thai basil everywhere until i wanted to use it, now i can't find it anywhere.

try the stores in my post above - they had heaps of it and heaps of different varieties just yesterday - an entire two rows of a motza of different herbs and garden veges.

i was like a kid in Disneyland, never knew there were so many different types or varieties of what i did know, available to the general public.

Re: Purple Basil

*crikey*mate* — Fri, 02 May 2014 05:52:03 GMT

@am*3 wrote:
Purple basil would be OK with same recipe. It has a lovely scent, I remember buying sone once and the nice smell wafting around in the car on the way home.

Yes, I'll give it a go, I can't detect any difference in the taste when i ate the leaves, but thought some kind of chemical reaction with the purple stuff might occur and change the flavour if i did different things to it.

Just need to wait a few days till the plants get over the shock of me replanting them last night, before i start cutting them up LOL

I hope that oregano doesn't hurt dogs. I planted about 30 different herbs and the dogs ate the oregano! Didn't touch anything else, just the oregano???

Lucky they didn't nibble on the chillis on the chilli plant I guess.

Got an amazing Chilli Plant, it seriously has lots of different coloured chillis on the one plant, red, yellow, green, black, purple. (and a few brown ones which I think are dead LOL)

Does anyone know if the seeds from these will reproduce multi coloured plants, or if they came from a purple one for instance, my new plant will only produce purple ones?

Re: Purple Basil

julie-in-oz2 — Fri, 02 May 2014 05:53:10 GMT

@*crikey*mate* wrote:
@julie-in-oz2 wrote:

Just saw that you bought the plants.

Anyone seen it in the stores?
I bought it at Masters which is sort of like a Bunnings.

but there is some on eBay atm too

Thanks Mate, we have masters here, will take a look.

Re: Purple Basil

nevillesdaughter — Fri, 02 May 2014 06:42:01 GMT

Crikey I make pesto all the time. I grow every different type of basil I can - sweet, greek, purple etc, and use them all together. I also prefer to use cashews instead of pine nuts. In something like pesto which has so many strong flavours - parmesan, nuts, olive oil - any subleties of different basils get lost I think. Besides which, I personally think the purple basil isn't much different from the sweet and if you wait a little while the plant usually reverts to green anyway.

Just my thoughts,

Marina.

Re: Purple Basil

*crikey*mate* — Fri, 02 May 2014 06:49:25 GMT

Thanks marina.

I was thinking of using it purple though for the colour contrast. Thought it might look good on an amuse bouche platter or something, a quenelle of the green one, a purple one and egg plant caviar.

Dunno, will have to see where it goes.

I deep fry the green leaves to make a basil chip garnish for one recipe, and they come out flourescent green and look amazing. Deep fried the purple Basil leaf just before and it just looks like I burned it.

In your experiences, does the purple one hold its colour in the prosessing or does it change? Will it change overnight with oxidization once it is cut/ground/mixed with stuff?

Re: Purple Basil

nevillesdaughter — Fri, 02 May 2014 06:54:21 GMT

Crikey I've never used the purple one on it's own - always mixed with other green leaves - and the mix still came out the lovely bright green but overnight turns to the darker olive green. I personally don't care about the colour because I am always too busy smearing it over everything I can find and delicately stuffing it up my face.

Happy cooking,

Marina.

Re: Purple Basil

kopenhagen5 — Fri, 02 May 2014 07:59:05 GMT

3 of my faves to cook with are Basil, Tarragon and bay leaves.

Tomato salad with bocconcini, red onion, pine nuts, fresh basil, cracked pepper and homemade french dressing. Yummmmm.

Most don't know there are 3 main types of Tarragon. French, Russian and Mexican. The French is considered the better.

Re: Purple Basil

*crikey*mate* — Fri, 02 May 2014 08:23:33 GMT

I bought some tarragon yesterday too Kopes, but don't know what type it is and didn't know there were different types! The label just says tarragon LOL

Your tomato salad sounds great!

I am aquiring the taste for boccici though, but I learned how to make it a few months back, so am having a bit of fun experimenting from time to time and adding different flavours etc to it

i thought about a bay leaf plant, but they grow into massive trees LOL, so will just continue to buy them for now

Re: Purple Basil

*crikey*mate* — Fri, 02 May 2014 08:24:15 GMT

is your french dressing creamy and thus white in appearance or a vinaigrette, Kopes?

Re: Purple Basil

*crikey*mate* — Fri, 02 May 2014 08:26:28 GMT

I use the green leaves of shallot onions to make an amazing looking flourescent green oil. Looks smashing drizzled over salmon mousses etc and a great contrast on other dishes with balsamic reduction/

Re: Purple Basil

imastawka — Fri, 02 May 2014 09:12:35 GMT

crikey, my daughter bought me a bay tree 15 years ago. It's still in the same pot.

It is only about 60cms high, but has plenty of leaves. I have even grown more from

cuttings for other people.

If you keep it off the ground, it will not root and become a huge tree and by taking

the leaves it gets bushier : - )

Re: Purple Basil

nevillesdaughter — Fri, 02 May 2014 09:31:58 GMT

I planted a 6 inch high bay tree about 15 years ago and it's now about 8 metres high - friends cut off quite big branches (and try to tell me they are helping with the pruning), to take home to hang up and dry.

As an aside, my first overseas trip was to Greece by myself when I was 18, and somebody pointed out a beautiful avenue of giant, ancient trees and explained to me that they were bay trees. I remained polite and tried to sound impressed but in my head I was thinking "Big whoop". Oh callow youth.....

Marina.