Thinking about the next dessert you are going to prepare to impress the neighbours? Here is a little hint that is actually going to be a fairly big 2012 food trend. Something that is locally grown, fresh, healthy and innovative in desserts.

Fresh herb infused oil.

I know. You just wanted to click on the home button of Asia Tatler Dining just now, hoping to find a saner article to read, thinking, "That's it, he lost it . . . oil and herbs in dessert!"

When you think about it, there is nothing mystical about making oil infused with fresh herbs and for that matter basil oil too. Yet, there are a few "good to know" tips you might want to read before going full speed against the wall. (Like I did on my first try, and as usual, not listening to the advice from my more experienced colleagues.)

Recently, I prepared a dessert for a TV show where I was using a fresh herb meringue served with a slow baked lemon tart, featuring all natural and homegrown ingredients from Hong Kong. I based the success rate of adding oil to a meringue on the principle that meringue blends well with fatty elements (i.e.: butter cream in Italian meringue) and I thought it would blend well with basil oil, too. And it did.

Basil oil can be used simply drizzled over fresh strawberries or blended into a preparation, such as the above meringue for example. It enhances the flavours and blends superbly with many dessert ingredients like cherries, lemon or chocolate.

To make a good basil oil, try to get basil that looks nice and fresh. Starting with basil that is about to die isn't going to help with the colour and the fragrance. Get a nice bunch of basil and also a bunch of flat Italian parsley. The parsley is going to be our deep green colouring helper as the basil itself is a bit weak after the blanching process. The other ingredient you'll need is a nice grape seed oil, or any another oil which doesn't have a strong fragrance. A good olive oil tends to mask the herbal tone and is not really recommended, unless you are really going for a perfumed olive oil.

Now that you have the three ingredients, here comes the process:

1. Pick the basil leaves and the parsley leaves.

2. Boil a pot of water and prepare an ice water bath on the side.

3. Blanch the basil and the parsley for about 1 minute in the simmering hot water.

4. Using a strainer, take out the blanched herbs and plunge them right away in the ice bath – this will seize the maximum in flavour and colour.

5. Take the herbs out of the ice bath and squeeze the excess water. The key point here is to squeeze the water out, but not the essential juices.

6. Using a bar blender, puree the herbs and add them to the oil.

7. Leave it for 10 minutes and finally pass the oil through a double cheese cloth or a paper coffee filter.

Once your oil is done, it's ready to use. And if you made a whole pot of it, you can keep it nice and green by freezing it. Freezing it? That's something else altogether! You will notice that your oil becomes solid and with a little creativity, the next time you serve your world famous melting chocolate pudding to your neighbours, you might want to serve it with a piece of frozen basil oil on top, it's delicious!