Sep 06: Chive Oil

I enjoy the flavor of chives. My parents grew chives in the backyard. I remember from my childhood, when the chives were in season, we would snip chives for our weekend scrambled eggs. Very Delish! To me it's one of those herbs that's underutilized, because they are expensive.

While shopping at an Asian supermarket, I purchased a pound of garlic chives. Garlic chives are common in Asian cooking and typically milder than the typical "snipped" chives you find in your local supermarket. However, garlic chives are easily 20x less expensive than (regular) chives, which is a big factor for me. lol

What am I going to do with a big bunch of chives?

Chive oil
5 or 6 ounces (about 2 cups) Garlic Chives, cut into 1 to 2 inch lengths
1/2 C Olive oil
1/2 C Vegetable oil (Soybean oil)
11/2 tsp Kosher salt

1. Blanch the cut chives in boiling water for about 10 seconds... drain on a towel. Squeeze out extra moisture as needed.

2. Add the blanched chives, oils and salt into a blend and blend into a smooth puree.

3. The mixture will be frothy from blending so let sit for an hour or two before straining. I used a paper towel to strain since I didn't have a coffee filter or cheesecloth.

The Taste:

Surprisingly, the oil is quite mild. I thought there would be a taste wallop of chives, but the oil is a lot more subtle than I expected. However, if I were to make this again, I would experiment with using no olive oil. The olive oil seemed to slightly overwhelm the oil's chiveness.


What can you do with the oil?
I can see using chive oil as a finishing (or garnishing) oil by adding a few drops on food before serving. Also, I think it would be a nice oil to use for a dressing.

Here's my first use of chive oil.
Eggs with smoked salmon finished with chive oil.


I enjoyed the flavor, but miss the wallop of chives, but I'm also the type of guy that uses hot sauce as others would use ketchup. :-)