BASIL LEAF  


Basil  (Ocimum basilicum), also called great basil or Saint-Joseph's-wort, is a culinary herb of the family Lamiaceae (mints). It is also called the "king of herbs" and the "royal herb". The name "basil" comes from Greek  (basilikón phutón), "royal/kingly plant".

Basil is possibly native to India, and has been cultivated there for more than 5,000 years. It was thoroughly familiar to the Greek authors Theophrastus and Dioscorides. It is a tender plant, best known as a culinary herb prominently featured in Italian cuisine, and also plays a major role in Southeast Asian cuisines of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Taiwan. Depending on the species and cultivar, the leaves may taste somewhat like anise, with a strong, pungent, often sweet smell.

Genovese Basil

  • Flavour

Fresh basil has an initial subtle peppery flavour. The taste then evolves into a slightly sweet, aromatic flavour.
When cooking with basil it should be added at the end of cooking. Heat removes the flavour and if cooked for too long can result in bitterness.
  • Aroma

Basil has a strong, pungent, sweet and somewhat menthol aroma. 
  • Pairing

Basil pairs exquisitely with lemon, tomato and garlic. Sweet basil is an essential ingredient in Italian and Mediterranean cuisine and loves being added to pasta, pizza, creamy sauces, dressings, soups, salads and olive oil. Pair basil with chicken, beef, tomatoes, eggs, chives, dill, oregano, rosemary, thyme, pepper and sea salt.

Thai Basil 

  • Flavour

Thai basil is often referred to as licorice basil for the strong anise flavour it offers.
Thai basil is more robust than sweet basil so can be cooked for longer periods of time without losing flavour. This makes Thai basil perfect for soups, stir-fries and curries. 

  • Aroma

Slightly cinnamon scented, similarly smelling to cloves. Thai basil's scent is not as pungent as sweet basil. 
  • Pairing

The oil from Thai basil compliments the taste of pork well. It is very popular in many Asian dishes and adds the essential flavour to Thai curries and stir-fries that is hard to replicate with any other herb.
Growing Basil

The flavour of basil is directly affected by its growing conditions. You can propagate basil by seeds and by cuttings (best taken during spring and winter). To encourage bushiness of the plant flowers should continually removed.  

In Australia it's best to plant when the soil is warm in late Spring with harvesting expected to be from early December until mid-May. Basil does not survive well in cool weather so harvest all leaves by April. 

Minimum temperature for growing has to be above 13 degrees celsius for germination. Basil likes a warm temperature with sun exposure and as such is a good window sill kitchen pot plant. In a warmer climate basil may grow in winter and can become a biennial plant. 

Ensure that the location of your basil plant yields 6 to 8 hours of sun per day. When the plant has its first 6 or so leaves prune above the second set to encourage growth. When using leaves it is best to remove the leaves as you need them. 

In gardens basil is a good companion to other plants and repels white fly and aphids. It has a particular affinity to tomatoes in pots and also on plate. 
History

Basil is originally native to Iran, India and other tropical regions of Asia, having been cultivated there for more than 5,000 years. Folklore was that if you wanted to grow fragrant, strong basil then you should shout and swear when sowing your seeds. It was also said that if a man gave a sprig of basil to a woman she was sure to fall for him. In Haiti, shopkeepers will sprinkle basil around their shops to ward off evil. Europeans claimed that basil would wilt if anyone with an impure heart touched it. 
Health Benefits of Basil

Herbal uses for basil include easing the pain in childbirth as well as easing a variety of ailments including headaches, indigestion, bad breath, joint pain, fatigue and strengthening the brain. If you have a cold or flu try drinking a strong basil tea with some lemon juice, a little honey and a pinch of cinnamon and cloves.  A great tip if you’ve got a headache starting is to get some basil and rub it into your temples.  Consuming fresh basil which has high amount of vitamins A and C can be considered a cancer fighter. Various cultures consider basil to help as a natural resistant to stress and disease and also to strengthen the immune system. Basil can be used as a hair conditioning rinse and scalp tonic by rinsing basil tea through your hair after shampooing. 


Source : 
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil
  2. http://www.gourmetgarden.com/en/herb/188/basil
  3. https://www.google.co.id/search?q=basil&rlz=1C1CHBF_enID752ID752&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiet8H54KPWAhVBQJQKHfuRDjEQ_AUICigB#imgrc=U1KSWkRVQADEXM:

BROKOLI




Broccoli is an edible green plant in the cabbage family whose large flowering head is eaten as a vegetable.

The word broccoli comes from the Italian plural of broccolo, which means "the flowering crest of a cabbage", and is the diminutive form of brocco, meaning "small nail" or "sprout". Broccoli is often boiled or steamed but may be eaten raw.

Broccoli is classified in the Italica cultivar group of the species Brassica oleracea. Broccoli has large flower heads, usually green in color, arranged in a tree-like structure branching out from a thick, edible stalk. The mass of flower heads is surrounded by leaves. Broccoli resembles cauliflower, which is a different cultivar group of the same species.

Broccoli is a result of careful breeding of cultivated Brassica crops in the northern Mediterranean starting in about the 6th century BC. Since the time of the Roman Empire, broccoli has been considered a uniquely valuable food among Italians. Broccoli was brought to England from Antwerp in the mid-18th century by Peter Scheemakers. Broccoli was first introduced to the United States by Southern Italian immigrants, but did not become widely popular until the 1920s.

Varieties

There are three commonly grown types of broccoli. The most familiar is Calabrese broccoli, often referred to simply as "broccoli", named after Calabria in Italy. It has large (10 to 20 cm) green heads and thick stalks. It is a cool season annual crop. Sprouting broccoli has a larger number of heads with many thin stalks. Purple cauliflower is a type of broccoli sold in southern Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. It has a head shaped like cauliflower, but consisting of tiny flower buds. It sometimes, but not always, has a purple cast to the tips of the flower buds.

Other cultivar groups of Brassica oleracea include cabbage (Capitata Group), cauliflower and Romanesco broccoli (Botrytis Group), kale and collard greens (Acephala Group), kohlrabi (Gongylodes Group), Brussels sprouts (Gemmifera Group), and kai-lan (Alboglabra Group). Rapini, sometimes called "broccoli raab" among other names, forms similar but smaller heads, and is actually a type of turnip (Brassica rapa). Broccolini or "Tenderstem broccoli" is a cross between broccoli and Chinese broccoli. Beneforté is a variety of broccoli containing 2–3 times more glucoraphanin that was produced by crossing broccoli with a wild Brassica variety, Brassica oleracea var villosa.

As shown on the table, a 100 gram serving of raw broccoli provides 34 kcal and is an excellent source (20% or higher of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamin C and vitamin K. Raw broccoli also contains moderate amounts (10–19% DV) of several B vitamins and the dietary mineral manganese, whereas other essential nutrients are in low content. Broccoli has low content of carbohydrates, protein, fat, and dietary fiber.

Boiling broccoli reduces the levels of sulforaphane, with losses of 20–30% after five minutes, 40–50% after ten minutes, and 77% after thirty minutes. However, other preparation methods such as steaming, microwaving, and stir frying had no significant effect on the compounds.

Broccoli also contains the carotenoid compounds lutein and zeaxanthin in amounts about 6 times lower than in kale.

Source : 
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broccoli
  2. https://www.google.com/search?q=broccoli&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiIn_e4iPDVAhUhSY8KHRIRBXMQ_AUICigB&biw=1366&bih=698
  3. http://www.droverstrailnaturalfarms.com/product/broccoli/



CLOVES  



Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, Syzygium aromaticum. They are native to the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice. Cloves are commercially harvested primarily in Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Madagascar, Zanzibar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania. Cloves are available throughout the year.

Cloves are used in the cuisine of Asian, African, and the Near and Middle East countries, lending flavor to meats, curries, and marinades, as well as fruit such as apples, pears or rhubarb. Cloves may be used to give aromatic and flavor qualities to hot beverages, often combined with other ingredients such as lemon and sugar. They are a common element in spice blends such as pumpkin pie spice and speculoos spices.

In Mexican cuisine, cloves are best known as clavos de olor, and often accompany cumin and cinnamon. They are also used in Peruvian cuisine, in a wide variety of dishes as carapulcra and arroz con leche.

A major component of clove taste is imparted by the chemical eugenol, and the quantity of the spice required is typically small. It pairs well with cinnamon, allspice, vanilla, red wine and basil, as well as onion, citrus peel, star anise, or peppercorns.
History 

Archeologists have found cloves in a ceramic vessel in Syria, with evidence that dates the find to within a few years of 1721 BC. In the third century BC, a Chinese leader in the Han Dynasty required those who addressed him to chew cloves to freshen their breath. Cloves were traded by Muslim sailors and merchants during the Middle Ages in the profitable Indian Ocean trade, the clove trade is also mentioned by Ibn Battuta and even famous Arabian Nights characters such as Sinbad the Sailor are known to have bought and sold cloves from India.

Until modern times, cloves grew only on a few islands in the Moluccas (historically called the Spice Islands), including Bacan, Makian, Moti, Ternate, and Tidore. In fact, the clove tree that experts believe is the oldest in the world, named Afo, is on Ternate. The tree is between 350 and 400 years old.  Tourists are told that seedlings from this very tree were stolen by a Frenchman named Pierre Poivre in 1770, transferred to the Isle de France (Mauritius), and then later to Zanzibar, which was once the world's largest producer of cloves.

Until cloves were grown outside of the Maluku Islands, they were traded like oil, with an enforced limit on exportation. As the Dutch East India Company consolidated its control of the spice trade in the 17th century, they sought to gain a monopoly in cloves as they had in nutmeg. However, "unlike nutmeg and mace, which were limited to the minute Bandas, clove trees grew all over the Moluccas, and the trade in cloves was way beyond the limited policing powers of the corporation."

Source : 
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clove
  2. https://www.google.co.id/search?q=CLOVE&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj355ve2qPWAhXMopQKHSc8B7cQ_AUICigB#imgrc=Y7g5XMa9Ld-whM:
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