Help With Infusing Olive Oil With Herbs

Are you using fresh or dried herbs? This makes a big difference.

I meant to add that I am using fresh garlic, freshly cured. They're small bulbs, with purplish highlights.

Fresh basil clipped from my garden, too. Thanks Tony Woodard, and all.

basil= i don't think you're supposed simmer it. fresh Herbs just placed in the bottle. (When cooking you never add fresh basil in the pot. You always add it just before serving. It's too fragile.)

Garlic low and slow in a cast iron pan in the oven. don't leave the bulbs in the oil when you jar it. strain the oil first. they will make the oil bitter.

I wouldn’t simmer the basil. The essential oils that give herbs their flavor are very volatile and can’t stand very much heat.

Here is a chart of the vaporization point of different oils, which is what gives the herbs their flavor. I wouldn’t go above 150 degrees for anything. Warm the oil up, use a candy thermometer to make check the temperature, remove from the heat then add your herbs. Let sit at room temperature until cool then refrigerate until use.

[quote]They're small bulbs, with purplish highlights.

Mmmmm. The best garlic.

Setting that aside, what are you trying to accomplish? I realize that sounds like an obnoxious question, but in my experience, "infused" olive oil doesn't equal the effect of using fresh ingredients at the time of meal preparation. Thinly sliced garlic, aired out for 10 minutes, and then sauteed in olive oil for about 20 seconds is the best way to infuse olive oil with garlic. Basil shouldn't* be infused in olive oil, just toss the ingredients together fresh. I've found that when making a basic tomato sauce for pasta, it's best to add some freshly clipped thyme and marjoram for a minute at the end of cooking the sauce, then dredge out the herbs. One minute is all it takes to extract the full flavor. (I add the basil after the pasta and sauce have been plated.)

* By "shouldn't," I mean you can do it all you want but it's not going to make a positive difference.

I don’t know shit about this infusion business. But if I wanted to attempt this, I would bruise the fresh leaves and put them in a small amount of olive oil, and let it sit for a good long while.

If restaurants have super-flavorful oil, I suspect they’re mixing an essential oil in it, not using actual leaves.

Heat will kill the basil flavour, which is why you always add it at the end of cooking and/or off the heat.

I would think that the basil-infused oil is made by turning the basil into a paste or having it very very finely chopped and then added to the oil, or just pureed with the oil--that one you would keep in the fridge and it wouldn't last very long.

The restaurant probably has a batch whipped up in one of those plastic squeeze bottles, which makes it easy to apply if it has lots of little green bits in it.

Pro tip: always drop a few pine needles in.

No, of course not.

I've had good luck with grating raw garlic on the very finest (vs. coarsest) Microplane grater. Then drop the garlic (which is like a slurry at that point) into the oil, then stir into the oil. The fine grating has a cooking effect on the garlic and I don't get any bitter taste. I do refrigerate the oil afterwards.

R5 Thanks for the flash points document.

Ok, thanks everybody. I just cooked up some pretty good pasta and it came put better than expected.

As you suggested, I didn't warm the basil, and instead I mixed it into freshly chopped Jersey tomatoes and set aside. I didn't nhave the time to let it infuse in olive oil, I was hungry now.

Then I skinned 5 garlic bulbs, cut them in half, and tossed them in the boiling pasta water that was cooking the gemelli.

Meanwhile, I toasted a couple of handfuls of pine nuts in the oven til almost golden.

Mixed everything together with olive oil, added fresh parmesan, salt, pepper.

It's good! The garlic bulbs added to the pasta water turned out a very delicately flavored pasta.

Next I will try your basil infusion suggestions.

R5 is too cute thinking that I would own a candy thermometer. That actually exists?

[quote]I've simmered basil in the olive oil

Please stop doing this. It's bloody painful.

R9, do you strain out the garlic slurry as suggested by r6?

Correction, r11, do you strain the slurry like r6?

R17 , no, I don't strain the slurry of garlic out of the oil. I leave the garlic slurry in the oil.

[quote]Correction, [R11], do you strain the slurry like [R6]?

Good sir, my garlic is not slurried. My point was that leaving garlic resting in olive oil for days or weeks at a time would not produce a stronger garlic taste in the olive oil than simply sauteeing it correctly at the last minute. If it makes you happy to see garlic resting in olive oil, go with God! If what you want is to add garlic taste to your olive oil, it doesn't take hours/days/weeks of prep.

I thought more about this as I was cooking dinner tonight. If you’re really want the flavor of the herbs to dominate you shouldn’t be using olive oil at all. Use a flavorless oil like canola.

OP, if you want a really subtle garlic taste that doesn't involve boiling the garlic, you can just smash a clove and rub the bowl that you're going to toss the pasta in with it like some people do for a salad. That way you get the oil from the garlic into final product without having to infuse any oil for ages, sauté it or boil it as you did.

wah wah