Scent leaf

• nchanwu

  Igbo — South-eastern Nigeria

• efinrin

  Yoruba — South-western Nigeria

• daidoya

  Hausa — Northern Nigeria

• scent leaf

  English — Nigeria and Ghana

  The West African English name for this plant specifically. "African basil" in a Western recipe or seed catalogue may mean this species or another Ocimum, and is not a reliable guide to what is in the packet.

Peppery, warm and clove-like, slightly bitter, with little of sweet basil’s sweetness.

Strong, warm and clove-like, often with a thyme or medicinal note; the balance varies with the plant, because the species occurs in chemical types dominated by eugenol, by thymol or by other compounds.

Deep green, broad leaves.

Coarse, slightly hairy leaves, softer when young; usually torn or sliced.

• Eugenol — The clove note, dominant in the eugenol type of the plant that most West African cooks grow.(what eugenol is)
• Thymol — The thyme-like, faintly medicinal note, dominant in the thymol type of the species.(what thymol is)

Tear or slice the leaves and add them in the last few minutes of cooking a soup or stew. For a long-cooked dish, add some at the start and more at the end.

A soup and stew herb of southern Nigeria and neighbouring West Africa, above all in pepper soup, where it is added late; also in yam and bean dishes and in herb-seasoned broths.

• boiling — Added to pepper soup and stews in the last minutes; the clove character survives a short simmer and fades over a long one.
• infusing — Steeped into broths as a whole sprig and removed, where the leaf is coarse or the plant old.

Rub a leaf: fresh scent leaf smells strongly of clove within seconds. Dried leaf that smells only of hay has faded.

• Blackened or slimy fresh leaves
• No clove smell on rubbing dried leaf

• Loss of the volatile clove and thyme notes
• Wilting and mould in fresh leaves

Lamiaceae

A woody, aromatic perennial shrub, far larger and more upright than sweet basil, with hairy stems, broad pointed leaves and spikes of small pale flowers. It is kept in home gardens across West Africa and grows readily from cuttings.

Native to tropical Africa and southern Asia, and naturalised widely through the tropics, including the Caribbean and Brazil.

• Nigeria — notable producer. Grown in home gardens and on small plots, and sold fresh in bunches and dried in markets.
• Ghana — notable producer
• Cameroon — notable producer

Leaves and leafy shoots are picked as needed through the growing season.

1. Picking — Leafy shoots cut from the shrub.
2. Drying (for the dried form) — Leaves air-dried in shade, then crumbled; the form that is exported to diaspora grocers.Why: To keep the herb beyond the few days a fresh bunch lasts.

Grown mostly in home gardens and around compounds rather than as a field crop, and gathered as needed.

A plant of the humid and sub-humid tropics, frost-tender and tolerant of poor soils.

Fresh where you can get it, dried leaf otherwise; dried scent leaf is a genuinely usable herb, unlike dried sweet basil, because its main aroma compound is heavier and keeps.

• Fresh bunches from a West African grocer, with firm, deep green leaves.
• Dried leaf that still smells clearly of clove when crushed.
• Sold as scent leaf, nchanwu or efinrin rather than as basil.

A local market herb, sold fresh in bunches across West Africa and dried for diaspora grocers abroad.

Widely used in West African household medicine, chiefly as an infusion for colds and digestive complaints. Recorded as tradition; SpiceHQ makes no health claim.