Comments on: Holy Basil, Batman - What is this plant?

Question: Holy Basil, Batman - What is this plant?

watercarrier — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:02:49 -0800

Smells like Basil - What is this plant?

Someone was doing some gardening and left a whole bunch of these cuttings. The stem is very woody, the taste is almost identical to basil, the aroma too. I thought it might be holy basil - tulsi. If not, what is it?

Thank you!

By: insectosaurus

insectosaurus — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:12:52 -0800

I'm not sure what you're asking - it's basil. Did you want to figure out the specific variety?

By: watercarrier

watercarrier — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:13:45 -0800

Yes. Which variety. Thanks!

By: TedW

TedW — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:15:37 -0800

I have grown a lot of basil over the years and that is what it looks like to me. There are a number of cultivars out there so the appearance can vary a good bit. Here it the southeast US it grows well enough that unless you make a lot of pesto, 4 or 5 plants can easily become overwhelming by summer's end, much like zucchini

By: TedW

TedW — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:20:03 -0800

I misunderstood your question; wikipedia has a good list of cultivars that might help you identify yours. It looks like holy basil has much smaller leaves. If I were to guess from your pictures I would say plain sweet basil like you might get from a big box store. It can get quite woody as it matures.

By: DarlingBri

DarlingBri — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:35:45 -0800

I think it's plain basil that has flowered, causing the stems to go woody.

By: JPD

JPD — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:41:01 -0800

Holy Basil looks more like Thai Basil than regular Basil. I think you've got good ol' Basil there.

By: JPD

JPD — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:41:27 -0800

Also you wouldn't mistake Holy Basils taste for regular Basil

By: watercarrier

watercarrier — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 09:17:36 -0800

Got a ton of it, smelled so nice couldn't resist. Thanks again everyone. Here's to good ol basil!

By: OHSnap

OHSnap — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 21:34:25 -0800

Perhaps unsolicited, but there are a variety of ways you can save all that basil for (much) later.

1) Chop it up and put small piles in the wells of an empty ice cube tray. Fill the wells as you would for ice and freeze. Then put your new basil cubes in a zip-lock bag and save until a recipe calls for fresh basil. Then chuck a cube or two in the pot and wait for it to melt. (We do this along with freezing whole paste tomatoes for sauce. We wait until all the tomatoes come in and then cook and jar all the sauce at once.)

2) Food-process the basil with oil as you would for pesto (without pine nuts). Line a pan with parchment or wax paper and dot it with the basil/oil mix - maybe teaspoon-sized pools. Carefully place in the freezer, then transfer to a zip-lock bag once frozen. Now you've got basil and oil for cooking, just throw it in the pot.

3) Pesto freezes just fine, too.