Garden Tips Newsletter
Easy Herbal Cooking Tips
October 13, 2008
Growing culinary herbs is easy. Right now, you can harvest armloads of basil, mint, and chives to name just a few. You can snip rosemary, oregano, fennel and many, many more culinary herbs in your garden — the trick for some may be what to do with them when you get them in the kitchen! Some beginning herb growers often try to follow recipe directions and guidelines precisely. That’s ok, but the fun part is experimenting with different herbs, combinations of herbs and amounts. Take notes when it works and take an antacid and forget about it when it doesn’t! Here are few other non-guidelines to follow:
- Harvest herbs for cooking when you have the time, no
matter what time of day. Fresh always tasted better than dried, no
matter what time of day you picked them—so, cut them and use
them. Can’t run out to the garden every day? Try this easy trick—on
the weekend pick a nice herbal bouquet of what is in season. Put it
in a vase of water on the kitchen counter and snip, snip, snip all
week. Chunk it on Friday and go pick another for the next week.
- Most herbs go with everything. Stand by your favorite
combinations, sage in dressing, oregano on pizza, basil in anything
with tomatoes in it, fennel with fish, tarragon in chicken salad; but
don’t be afraid to try new things. You may discover a great combo
that your family loves.
- Harvest and dry herbs that will be killed by freezing
weather, so you will have dried herbs to use during the winter. Easiest
method to dry is to bundle stems together with rubber bands and hang
in a hot, dry, dark place like an attic until they are crispy dry.
Remove the leaves, and store whole in airtight containers. Crumble
the whole leaves right into the dish you want to flavor. Freezing works
great for those herbs that do not hold their flavor well when dried—examples
would be chives, parsley and cilantro. Freeze whole stems in plastic
freezer bags. When ready to use remove from freezer and chop whole
stems and leaves while still frozen before adding to food.
- For best flavor add the herbs in the last 10-20 minutes
of the cooking cycle. Of course, if the herbs are incorporating into
the batter of bread or dressing you would have to add before cooking.
- Locate your culinary herb garden near the kitchen if possible. If you have to walk more than 10 paces to get that handful of basil to go in that spaghetti sauce, I can about guarantee you, you won’t do it! Especially if you have wild-eyed, hungry children or a spouse hanging over you as you try to cook.
Lelia Scott Kelly, Ph.D., writes Garden Tips weekly and is a Horticulture Specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. Her office is in the North Mississippi Research & Extension Center, Verona.