2 minute read

THAI LOVE YOU

SUMMER'S TASTIEST HERB

Thai basil’s unique avor can’t be replaced. Wheelhouse co-owner and chef, Zach Smallwood, explains why sweet basil and other seasonings just won’t do your recipes justice like Thai basil will.

WRITTEN BY JO JOLLIFF

The Wheelhouse menu is lled with dish after dish of fresh food, bursting with unique avor. One of the many secrets behind these magically avored dishes is one special herb. “We use Thai basil,” says co-owner and chef Zach Smallwood. “In the summertime we grow it and are able to use quite a bit of it from our own gardens.” Home cooks can do the same.

They plant the seeds inside in the spring and then move them outside where they continue to replant throughout the summer to ensure they have fresh Thai basil all through its growing season until the rst frost. You can purchase your own Thai basil seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company (2278 Baker Creek Rd., Mans eld; rareseeds.com) to plant and use for home cooking.

Smallwood says many chefs use the owers for culinary purposes as well due to their taste and their aesthetic look. “Thai basil has a strong avor to it and actually shares some of the same avor compounds as fennel seeds and star anise, so it adds a really interesting avor and undertone to the dish,” he says. At The Wheelhouse, they use Thai basil in their Thai Basil Chicken recipe, of course, but also as a garnish in their Drunken Noodle dish. The sauce is star anise with a very dark molasses avor, which is then accentuated by the Thai basil to balance the avors and use the herbal freshness of the seasoning to work against the sweetness of the sauce.

While they do occasionally use small amounts in the dish itself, it is often better as a garnish. “One of the things about Thai basil is if you cook it, it loses a lot of its avor, but if you put it on top it retains both its avor and color,” Smallwood says. 

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