I was almost surprised at how easy and reasonably priced(in general) this recipe is. However, I cut the chives a little short. I'm sure the standard recipe is a bit more dense, and not much more difficult to make.
The chives are cut into 3" section. The recipe calls for 2 ounces or two bunches. Meijer sells them in 3/4 oz. containers in winter. Since spring is not here, I had to settle. First the chives are blanched-cooked in boiling water for nearly 10 seconds, then tossed in ice water for cooling off to brighten them up and bring out their flavor.
Then the package of blanched, snipped chives is placed into the blender with 3/4 cup of oil and blended on high speed. I tried to cut the oil in half to "halve" the recipe, but the blender wouldn't have it. Learning from previous blender discussions, I added more oil -grapeseed in this case.
A few seconds on high speed, and voila! I have chive oil ready to dress my beet and arugula salad or brush across a crostini. Simple, delicate, and beautiful. It made the beet "caviar" on arugula taste better too.
I will make these oils again when the herbs are in season and possibly gift them this year.
If you have fresh chives, will they still need to be blanched? How long will it keep? Can you do this with any fresh herb? Sorry about all the questions, but you're right, it's so easy and sounds so good, I just must know the possibilities!
ReplyDeleteHi Julie, The recipe does call for fresh chives, so they would still need to be blanched, according to this recipe. However, you are welcome to read up on chives or other herbs and attempt the chive oil without blanching them. Its not hard, its just a bit of fuss to set up. I'm assuming you can do this with just about any herb as the book has two other recipes for basil oil and mint oil, made pretty much the same way. With the basil oil, Emeril recommends processing the leaves into the oil in batches to prevent bruising. If I recall, I've already made the basil oil, see August or September 2010 recipes;-). I liked it and will make it again one day. For now, I'm simply trying to grow basil-and I promise I did not plant it with tomatoes. Thanks for your comments. It makes this even more fun.
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