Thought for Food
Herbs When and How
By ELIZABETH DAVID
WIIEN a recipe says `herbs,' when can I use dried and when must I use fresh ones (must because the latter are more difficult to get)? Can 1 use the herbs such as fennel and marjoram which I see growing A wild? If so, which parts, fresh and/or dried? Into what dishes to put which different herbs and, roughly, in what quantities?
Questions, all these, put to me by a reader; good questions, but not ones to which there are any short or definitive answers. As briefly as pos- sible, however, and to deal with the commonest herbs only, I'd outline the whole matter as follows: among those herbs which it is essential to have fresh, or, rather, which are not worth bothering with in dried form are parsley, chives, chervil, fennel leaves. Fresh tarragon, provided it comes from the true French plant and not from the Russian variety, more prolific but scentless, has considerable strength, flavour and aroma, all of which are weakened, although not radically altered, when the herb is dried; so a good dried tarragon (such as the one put out by the Chiltern Herb Farm) used within a few months—very few dried herbs last as long as a year—does very well in Bearnaise sauce, in stuffings and sauces for chicken, in fish dishes, and in the kind of vinaigrette sauce to which chopped herbs are added. If a recipe prescribes a teaspoon of fresh tarragon leaves, use double the amount of dried.
Basil is a herb which is incomparably superior in its fresh form. One little bunch or plant will fill a whole room with its rich and spicy scent; but the plant is notoriously difficult to rear in our climate, and when it does succeed, is in season during a few weeks of the late summer only. There are some dishes, such -as the famous soupe au pistou of the Nicois district1 and the pesto sauce of the Genoese, which depend entirely on fresh basil, and plenty of it, for their existence, and these it would be pointless to attempt with the dried version which not only loses a deal of its pungency but also undergoes a change in flavour. Good ones, such as Harrods' imported dried basil and the Chiltern home-grown—when available—still give out an attractive and quite pronounced scent when used in meat stews, sauces for pasta, soups, and Mediterranean vegetable dishes. I find basil indispensable and use it lavishly, but it isn't everybody's taste, so quantities must be decided by trial and error.
With fresh mint we're on more familiar ground. Any respectable English cook knows that if she wants mint sauce then the fresh herb is essential. Dried, the crumbled leaves of common wild or garden spearmint make a typical Middle Eastern flavouring for curd cheese filling for pastry, yoghurt dressings and sauces, stuffed or stewed aubergines, tomatoes and peppers, pilaffs, carrots, fish stewed in oil, soups. Quite often, in this type of cookery, mint can be substituted for dried basil.
An important but overlooked category of herbs are those which are used dried, or semi-dried, on the stalk. These include all kinds of thyme, bay leaves, rosemary and sage, and (stalks only) fennel and dill.
Fresh wild thyme from the Downs and most of the cultivated varieties, and also bay leaves, rose- mary and sage, can be left, without water, in a big bowl, or spread out on newspaper. In due course they become sufficiently dry to be stored, on the stalk, in tall glass jars; or they can be kept anywhere handy in the kitchen — although the bunches of herbs which look so picturesque hanging up in the kitchens of Mediterranean houses tend, in smoky cities, to get a bit musty and begrimed. Twigs of thyme and bay leaves tied together with fresh parsley make up the routine bouquet of French stewed And braised dishes; to this bouquet some cooks add rosemary. I don't. Many Italians stuff joints of lamb and pork almost to bursting with rosemary, and the result is perfectly awful. The meat is drowned in the acrid taste of the herb and the spiky little leaves get stuck between your teeth. Once, in an out-of-doors Capri café I saw an old woman basting her fish, grilling over an open charcoal fire, with a branch of rosemary dipped in olive oil. That's about as much of rosemary as, person- ally, I want.
But the use of herbs is very much a matter of association, taste, and prejudice, and cooks whose work I respect recommend a branch or two of rosemary in the dish with veal, chicken and lamb roasts (I prefer branches of wild thyme). fialian cooks, like ourselves, are also fond of sage, and use it for a number of veal dishes. To me, it Cyril Ray is on holiday. deadens the food with its musty, dried blood smell. It's worth trying dried mint or basil in- stead, especially in a sauce or stuffing for duck.
For pork roasts and grills, for fish stocks and soups, for herb vinaigrettes to go with chicken Or fish, the dried stalks of wild or garden fennel and of dill make a wonderfully aromatic flavour- ing. These, and all other herbs can be dried in the plate drawer which gets the heat from the oven of a gas or electric cooker—or in a heated linen cupboard. (For drying herbs, very gentle heat is best.) The feathery leaves of fennel, though. don't survive the drying process.
When it's a question of bought herbs, dried and rubbed, the rougher-looking ones are usually the best. The more finely powdered the herbs, the more the aromas tend to get lost. Lemon thyme (also delicious when fresh), common thyme and marjoram are all good and much used dried herbs for poultry and veal stuffings and for meat stews. Dried wild marjoram, usually sold as oregano (origanum being the botanical name of all marjorams) is a splendid herb to sprinkle on lamb and pork for roasting and grilling. In Greece, grilled lamb kebabs owe much of their character to the combined flavours of rigani and lemon juice freely sprinkled over the meat before cooking. An important point, though, about the Greek wild marjoram is that the Greeks dry the flower heads for cooking purposes whereas here, in France, and in Italy, it is the leaves which are used. The difference in scent and keeping quality is immense, the Greek version being in both cases one hundred per cent on the winning side. Rigani can be bought from the Hellenic Provision Stores, 25 Charlotte Street, WI. But ask for the flower heads, or you may get the Italian kind, leaves only.
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