Flavor – How to cook with bay leaves

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I am an amateur hobbyist cook. So a lot of the time I will toss in a dash of something, taste the dish, and add a bit more. Experimenting sometimes with disastrous results… but I learn 🙂

One spice that I am having a hard time figuring out is the bay leaf. I use it when called for, and have sometimes experimented with it, but I can't seem to place the "effect" it has on the dish.

So my questions:

  1. What is the general flavor of a bay leaf, is there a dish that exemplifies this?
  2. How long do I need to cook with a bay leaf before it has an effect?

I think part of my quandary is that I can't simply add some to a sauce, stir it in, and taste it to see the difference. Am I wrong to believe that it takes awhile to permeate the dish?

Best Answer

I don't know how you would describe the flavor of bay--I would call it a subtle savoriness, with a complex aroma.

Bay is very tough--almost sharp. It is generally not eaten directly. Instead, the whole leaf (or several whole leaves) are put into a dish or sauce to cook with it, then removed prior to service.

The shortest recipe I have for using bay is in a rice pilaf while it cooks, which is 15-30 minutes depending. I am not aware of an upper time limit.

Here is a Miami Herald article offering some other perspectives on using bay leaves:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/30/2823923/cooking-with-bay-leaves.html

As they Herald points out, many folks prefer Turkish bay rather than California bay, because it has a more complex, subtle flavor.

. . .

I believe custard in Britain had bay as a traditional ingredient--you might make a custard with a single bay leaf to get some sense of what it tastes like without lots of competing strong flavors.

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Update: Serious Eats Food Lab has just published an article, What is the point of bay leaves? with lots of good information that may be of interest.

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