Homemade Ingredients: Basil Lemon Garlic Oil

Oil, complete with everything shown here

In my first post I mentioned using lavender oil to cook with. Flavored and scented oils are a fun organic chemistry hack to use in the kitchen. The molecules that carry flavor and scent dissolve very easily in fats, so oil is a great way to carry flavors. To make the lavender oil I put lavender and canola oil in a glass bottle and set it on my window sill. The next day I pulled the lavender out and kept remaining oil to use in my cooking. You can also speed up the process by heating the oil, which was what I did this time. I cut up basil, garlic, and lemon peel, cooked them in extra virgin olive oil for about fifteen minutes, then poured the oil into a glass bottle.
The oil is fragrant and delicious. My favorite use for it so far is sauteing zucchini.