Basil as a pizza topping
I've eaten pizza that has basil leaves as a topping, and the leaves come out bright green and tender. I used fresh basil from my garden on pizza for the first time today, and -- predictable, in retrospect -- my basil leaves dried out and were more browned. I put them on top of the cheese, like I've seen in other basil pizza. This put something without much in the way of natural oils on top of something being baked at high heat.
What should I have done to the basil to get the effect I've seen? Should I have rubbed it with oil? Soaked it in something? Something else? My basil crop is doing pretty well and I'll want to try this again soon.
1 answer
If you use fresh herbs as topping for any dish, these should be added after you have cooked or baked your meal.
When cut, fresh herbs are very small and their internal structure consists of a lot of water which due to the smallness of the herbs evaporates quickly as soon as it's heated up, meaning that the herbs just dry up. Because of that fresh herbs should always be added as last step when everything else is done. Additionally, it tastes better this way (because you don't lose a big portion of the ingredient that way).
You can add herbs to sauces, dough or other stuff from the beginning though. Sauces, for example, have a lot of liquid in them so they "protect" ingredients that would otherwise lose a lot of liquid in the process of cooking or baking.
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