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Basil
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Description
Name: Basil.
Product type: Plant.
Color and texture: Green leaves.Its special flavour comes from around twenty chemical compounds, which include estragole, the molecule responsible for the subtle lemon fragrance of some varieties.
Production area: Grown throughout Italy.
Note: Besides the famous Pesto alla Genovese, of which it is the main ingredient, basil is used extensively in all tomato sauces. Although maximum flavour is achieved by using the fresh leaves of the plant, basil can also be frozen with excellent results, as long as the leaves are carefully dried before freezing. Basil plants can also be grown easily in the home, but they are very sensitive to those first winter chills. |
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Of all the herbs which lend a special flavour to sauces and condiments, basil, whose name comes from the Greek basilikon meaning regal herb, has always held a prestigious position as the undisputed protagonist of Pesto alla Genovese. In the north-western Italian region of Liguria there is even a confraternity dedicated to promoting local gastronomic products containing basil.
Basil is celebrated in the Ligurian town of Diano Marina with a special feast day in which thousands take part, but throughout Italy lovers of good food could not live without it. This is true especially for Mediterranean cuisine, which, without this herbaceous plant, would find itself deprived of an irreplaceable ingredient to flavour Tomato sauce.
Herbalists and chemists have racked their brains to understand its nature and the secrets of its unique flavour, concluding that there are at least twenty aromatic compounds that make up its fragrance, which varies in relation to the ratio of these compounds.
In effect each variety has its own distinctive scent, some reminiscent of lemon, others more of mint.You can even exploit the "green" of basil to colour egg pasta, by adding 100 grams of blended basil leaves per kg of flour used. Basil plants, available from any fruit and vegetable store, are easy to keep on a balcony and will produce plenty of leaves up until the first chilly spells, thus satisfying all "aromatic" requirements in home cooking.
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