Displaying items by tag: herbs

As the weather is getting warmer and the nights are drawing out I start to get excited about summer, having fresh garden produce and forgetting about cooking warming winter soups and stews. Discover the difference that a few fresh herbs can make to your spring salads by either adding them into the salad, providing a nice contrast to the crunchy leaves of lettuce, or blitzing them into a simple vinaigrette dressing. As herbs begin to shoot in spring, or I’m lucky enough to find some that have over-wintered well, I spruce up even the plainest of salads with a few sprigs of fresh herbs. Be brave and experiment with different herbs adding vitality, texture and flavour to your meals. Make the bulk of the salad with mild flavour leaves such as Cos, Romaine, Little Gem or Lollo Rosso. Lovage – use the leaves sparingly as they add a very strong savoury flavour when raw. The first stems of spring provide the most delicate flavour. Try rubbing the salad bowl with bruised leaves to impart a milder flavour. Chives – the snipped stalks add a delicate onion (or garlicky if using Chinese chives) flavour. Hard boiled eggs, crumbled crisp bacon, watercress, steamed Jersey Royals, raw or steamed freshly podded peas all contrast well with chives and will liven up a leaf salad. Chickweed – or hip weed as I call it, now grown commercially for the restaurant trade and used in both salads and garnishes. Full of vitamin C and tastes slightly grassy, throw this in in abundance as it’s delicate, mild flavoured and if from your garden, free! Winter purslane – sometimes called Miners lettuce and grows rapidly in the spring. Add the narrow early leaves or the curious stem-wrapping leaves for a cool, mild flavour also providing a succulent and juicy texture into a leaf salad. It’s also very nice wilted as in the spinach recipe. Chervil – use the stem and leaf chopped into salads to add a subtle aniseed flavour. It complements eggs, fish and cucumber particularly well. Crab, goats curd and chervil is a favourite combination of mine.

I never need an excuse to light a fire outside and cook ‘al fresco’ and now it’s officially barbecue season that’s where I’ll be. The golden rule of cooking on a barbecue, or wood fire, is to cook over embers, not flames and to distinguish whether you are cooking something that requires searing rather than slow cooking. So, it’s always best to cook meats that require a fierce heat as soon as the flames have died down, and the embers are still glowing. Then grill ingredients such as fish, which require slower cooking, as the temperature of the fire drops. By mid-summer the herbs in my garden are at their best and plentiful so can be used liberally on barbecued food. Gutsy herbs indigenous/native of the Mediterranean and Middle East work very well in barbecues and include rosemary which adds an aromatic and resinous flavour working very well with fatty and rich meats such as lamb. I like to use the straight, small woody branches for my lamb, onion and rosemary skewers. Oregano and marjoram are both closely related and I still struggle to identify between the two growing in my garden. Oregano has a more pungent and domineering flavour whereas marjoram is slightly more delicate, also faintly savoury and lightly sweet scented. If using oregano then use a little more sparingly. It has a special affinity with tomato based dishes and sauces and works very well when put with lemon and garlic in a marinade. Coriander can be chopped and mixed into natural yoghurt with Indian spices to create a delicious marinade for both chicken and fish. The pungent, slightly citrus flavour marries well with lime zest and juice to make a herb butter which is delicious served on seafood cooked on a barbecue. Dill is often associated with Nordic or Russian cuisine and is used extensively in Persian cuisine. I love it with fish, particularly salmon which barbecues very well. Combined with sumac a Middle Eastern spice which adds tartness and astringency to food it makes a perfect marinade for salmon. Mint adds another dimension to whole grilled courgettes that have been allowed to cool a little and then drizzled with oil, salt and pepper and chopped mint. The same combination is also delicious on grilled halloumi cheese.

The first of the blackberries and it's beginning to feel like autumn. I created this recipe for an article I wrote for the Herb Society. Tarragon usually survives in my garden until the first winter frosts and it lends a warming aniseed flavour if used generously in a Coq au Vin. It is excellent in egg dishes and with vegetables such as Jerusalem artichokes, mushrooms and marrow. Its warm flavour makes it a perfect contrast to pulses and it is delicious with flageolet beans and nearly always better in cooked dishes than served raw. It is an essential ingredient of fines herbes and béarnaise sauce. However with its liquorice like flavour, fresh tarragon marries particularly well (and interestingly) in fresh cream desserts and served with blackberries or poached plums has to be the ultimate autumn dessert.

Tarragon Cream (makes 6)

600 ml double cream

150 ml milk

4 large sprigs tarragon

3 sheets leaf gelatine

140g caster sugar

Method

Place the gelatine leaves in a bowl and cover with cold water

Put the cream, milk, sugar and tarragon in a heavy based saucepan and bring slowly to the boil.

Or place together in a jug and microwave.

Remove from the heat and add the softened gelatine, squeezing out any excess water out first.

Stir well and then strain through a sieve into a jug.

Divide the mixture between six ramekins or glasses.

Place in the fridge until set.

(Can be turned out like a jelly if preferred)

Hardly ever seen until this year but now it's trendy and on every menu. It grows like a weed in my garden. My favourite way to use it is to rub my salad bowl with a big handful of the stuff and it will impart a lovely savoury Bovril like flavour. When used raw in dishes it can be very overpowering. The first young stalks of spring are the best for a delicious delicate flavour.

If you go to your local park and pick elderflowers it isn't foraging. If you go to your back garden and pick up some windfall apples, it isn't foraging. If you have a basil plant on your balcony, that isn't foraging either. Foraging for edible wild plants and all the new names for what we used to call weeds is OVER - time to stop.

We had a big family celebration party at the weekend and ended up with a fridge full of leftovers, including a load of butter and selection of fresh herbs. So we made herb butter. This is how ... Snap off any thick stalks, wash and dry the herbs in a salad spinner to remove excess water. Break large pieces of room temperature butter into smaller pieces and drop evenly into the blender. Whizz for a few minutes and if needed gently poke the butter down into the herbs with a plastic spoon. You will need to do this if the butter is too cold and hard. The butter should mix evenly with the herbs. Spoon the mixture onto grease proof paper and roll into a sausage shape. Twist the ends of the paper to seal. If you want to store the herb butter in smaller quantities cut into discs once the butter has hardened in the fridge. Repack in grease proof paper and store in a plastic tub in the deep freeze until required. Remember to label the packages.Parsley gives a wonderful green tint to the mixture. The butter can be smeared on meat before barbequeing, or on grilled fish and steak. Mint is slightly less verdant than parsley but the butter is delicious added to omlettes or mixed into peas. Dill butter goes wonderfully well with salmon - and is also a great accompaniment to gently scrambled eggs. Add zest of lemon to your dill butter for extra flavour. If you don't have any pesto add basil butter to pasta dishes. Your favourite herb butter can be used to add flavour to jacket potatoes or spread onto warm bread.

• parsley and butter goes into the mixer
• spread the butter on paper and roll
• slice the chilled butter into discs
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Barbara Segall writes about gardens and herbs. Some great tips on her blog for growing and harvesting your own produce. 

I was hunting for microcress, pea shoots and edible flowers and found the most amazing selection grown right here in East Anglia.

Allan Miller at Nurtured in Norfolk in Dereham invited me to take a tour of his glasshouses and I was hit by a sea of green, mini micro leaves of every variety, some which I had never even heard of.

Allan and his wife Sue gave up their jobs as chefs and started growing microcress in a greenhouse in their back garden.  Now they supply the likes of Ollie Dabbous and other Michelin acclaimed chefs.

• garlic chives
• the glasshouse
• par-cel
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Today I picked my whole crop of basil and turned it into pesto sauce ready to smother onto hot pasta. Pesto is very quick and easy to make, either in a mini food processor or by hand, with a pestle and mortar. You will need:

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup pine nuts ( or try walnuts for a change)
• 3 medium sized garlic cloves crushed
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Crush the basil leaves, salt, pepper and garlic together adding the nuts and oil a little at a time.  Keep working until you have a rough paste. Add the grated cheese and the last of the oil.  Mix well and store in the fridge in a covered jar.

I keep a layer of oil on top of the sauce, to maintain the colour and texture. 

Paul Foster is making his name with restaurant critics and is due to appear on The Great British Menu on TV next month.  He's Head Chef at Tuddenham Mill. Lunch today was very good indeed with the menu featuring some interesting herbs, some of which I believe are foraged locally.  Pictured is my main course of potato terrine, artichoke, mushrooms and watercress. I am pretty sure the plate has chickweed on.  What does everyone think?

A set lunch is £20 for two courses and £25 for three courses, with both an amuse bouche and very generous plate of home baked breads.  A bit of a treat for a Monday!