Bay laurel

Bay laurel is the dried, lanceolate leaf of Laurus nobilis, an evergreen tree of the Lauraceae family native to the northern Mediterranean and Asia Minor. In the spice trade the leaf reaches pantries whole, pale olive-green, stiff, glossy on the upper face and matte beneath, with a leathery snap when fresh and a dull crumble when old. The essential oil, concentrated in the leaf at one to three percent, is dominated by 1,8-cineole (eucalyptol) at 30 to 50 percent, linalool at 10 to 25 percent, alpha-terpinyl acetate, sabinene and methyl eugenol in smaller shares; these give bay its characteristic cool camphor-menthol lift wrapped around a warm, almost clove-adjacent core. True bay laurel must not be confused with California bay (Umbellularia californica), West Indian bay (Pimenta racemosa), Indian bay (Cinnamomum tamala) or Indonesian salam leaf (Syzygium polyanthum) -- all four are traded as bay and all four taste wrong in a French stock. Culinarily L. nobilis is the backbone of the bouquet garni, French daubes and cassoulets, Spanish pisto and lentil stews, Italian sugos and arrosti, Greek stifado and avgolemono, pickling brines from dill cucumbers to herring, court-bouillon for poached fish and crustaceans, and bechamel steeped with onion. A bay leaf is rarely the loudest voice in a pot; it is the underline, the punctuation, the thing you do not notice until you cook a dish without it and wonder why it falls flat.