I am not a fan of anise/licorice basil. It strikes me as a poor relation of sweet (Thai) basil — which is unfortunate, because of all the basil cultivars I find anise basil the easiest to grow. Sweet basil can be a jerk, but anise basil is a trouper. I just don’t have much use for it. I like aniseed in bread (think torta or ensaimada) and in sweet sticky rice (biko), and that’s the whole of it. In our household, anise basil’s utility is inversely proportional to its fecundity — like some people I know, but I digress.
Apparently, some people like a hit of licorice in their salad. I qualify that statement because there are many cultivars of basil with (again I suppose) varying hints of licorice/anise, so I can’t be certain if they’re referring to the kind growing in our garden. Let’s just say my idea of a salad involves nothing more pungent than lime or kalamansi juice. If I muster enough interest to attempt ensaimada (unlikely) or torta (even more unlikely), I have this idea to substitute anise basil for aniseed to see how it would hold up (although it didn’t work in this braided bread experiment).
I could, however, corral my friend Eva to make biko.
In this corner of the Visayas, biko is made from two kinds of glutinous rice: pilit/malagkit (the white variety) and tapol/pirurutong (purple). After the mixture cooks, it is incorporated with caramelized (sugared) coconut cream (latik). Aniseed is an optional ingredient. Some people cook it with the rice while others toast the seeds and add them to the latik at the last minute. I like it either way.
Given basil’s delicate nature, I added a large stem’s worth of chopped leaves only after the latik had been mixed in with the rice. The biko tasted… well, like biko. No smell or taste of anise whatsoever. So off I went to the roof garden in the middle of a torrential downpour to get more. And then once again. Then I gave up. What’s the point? I asked myself. I was also starting to feel sorry for the balding basil, but that’s neither here nor there.
So that’s twice that I failed to have anise basil stand in for aniseed. It won’t kill me. It certainly won’t kill the basil. But I’m curious all the same. Should I have used more — a lot more? Would it have mattered? Or was it that the heat neutralized the scent of the herb?* Its bouquet makes for good party conversation — I can tell you that much — even though I never let on that I have zero practical use for this particular cultivar, and will even press it upon you given half a chance. Now you know. There’s your bonus for getting this far.
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