Dill -- how do you use it?

[LindaK]

A friend gifted me a huge bunch of dill from her garden. I made a quick batch of pickles with some local cucumbers, then sprinkled some over broiled salmon. And then...completely out of ideas.

I'm embarrassed to say, dill is just not in my repertoire. It isn't that I don't like it, I just don't understand how to use it. Any favorite recipes or foods that include dill?

[Jason Perlow]

I'm not crazy about the stuff but actually I've had it added to chicken stocks for soup such as matzo ball and it's not bad, don't use too much though.

[SylviaLovegren]

Greek food, oddly enough, uses dill. Delicious in tzatziki, a nice touch in spanakopita, and Greek meatballs often are flavored with a warm spice (cinnamon) and a cool green herb -- either mint or dill. I think Persian food uses dill as a "sour" touch, as well.

Poached salmon is lovely with a dill sour cream sauce, and salmon patties (made from leftover salmon or even canned) is perked up with a touch of dill.

[Jason Perlow]

Yes, good for spinach dishes and adding to yogurt sauces.

[Catherine Iino]

Yes, Greek: chicken with avgolemeno--egg and lemon--sauce with lots of dill is lovely.

[Pierogi]

Fresh cucumber salad with very thinly sliced and wilted cucumbers, thinly sliced scallions and some finely chopped hard cooked eggs. Dress with sour cream mixed with a bit of vinegar (or lemon juice), S&P and fresh dill. Classic Polish (and probably any Eastern European) side dish comfort food.

Pea salad. Fresh or thawed frozen peas, scallions and chopped, fried bacon. Dress with equal parts mayo and sour cream, fresh dill and S&P. Serve in butter lettuce cups. Reminds me I should make this soon.

[Mjx]

Fresh dill is really good with fish. In Denmark, when I've been served cured salmon in people's homes, a bunch of dill and a pair of scissors are passed around the table, and it's snipped directly onto the salmon you've arranged on your sandwich.

[Katie Meadow]

Make a compound butter using fresh dill--it's great on boiled fingerlings or new potatoes, great as a finish for simply cooked salmon and great for scrambling eggs. If you like radishes with butter, try radishes with dill butter. Egg salad or deviled eggs with dill, very nice. Mixed with sour cream / crema / yogurt to accompany savory pancakes of various kinds.

[conifer]

Mix with sour cream or yogurt and serve over swedish meatballs.

[wanderingtaoist]

This is what they call tarator in Bulgaria (tzatziki in Greece) and is absolutely wonderful and refreshing on a hot summer day:

Shred a cucumber, salt it and cover with dill (the more the better for me), add crushed/minced garlic and olive oil. Add good Greek yoghurt, mix well and put in a fridge for a few hours. You can either drink it (in that case add some milk to achieve more fluid consistency), use as a dipping sauce with grilled meat or vegetables (typical tzatziki use) or eat on its own. Some Bulgarians also mix in crushed walnuts, which adds a nice slightly bitter aftertaste. The dill is extremely nice in this.

Salmon (especially smoked) and dill are a natural fit.

If you have new potatoes, just steam them and mix with dill and/or parsley with olive oil for a quick fragrant spring salad.

[ChrisZ]

For me, dill is the taste of Greek food (as others have already suggested). A little dill can make the difference between the same ingredient tasting "Italian" or "Greek" - red peppers for example.

A really simple dish to try is saganaki - works well with prawns.

If you simply sauté some prawns and add tomatoes you might have an Italian pasta sauce. But if you add some Ouzo (flambe) then throw in some fetta and some dill you end up with a distinctively Greek prawn saganaki. Takes 5 minutes to cook and is delicious.

Dill - Fetta - Ouzo = excellent combination.

[Jenni]

I've eaten a couple of Iranian style rice dishes with dill in them, amongst other herbs I think. Very very good.

Dill is also used in a number of Indian cuisines as a vegetable. Because of its distinctive aroma and taste, not everyone likes it! In Allahabad, it is often sold in combination with methi (fenugreek greens) and a common recipe is to cook it as a dry sabzi (vegetable dish) with potatoes (either along with the methi or without).

There's also a famous Sindhi dish called sai bhaji which is a mixture of vegetables cooked with greens and chana dal until tender and then mashed. The dill in it gives a distinctive flavour.

One of the dishes I make most commonly with dill is a chana dal khichdi (rice and dal dish) with dill as the main vegetable and cumin, hing, tomatoes and garam masala used in the tadka. Another dish is toor dal with dil. For this the toor dal is pressure cooked and then the dill and some chilli powder is simmered in it until done, before a tadka of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, hing and garlic is given. Both of these dishes are divine with a good squeeze of lemon.

[boudin noir]

Gravlox.

[mkayahara]

One of my favourite recipes with dill, and a summer staple in my house, is grilled lemon chicken salad with dill cream dressing, from an old issue of Bon Appétit.

[HungryC]

Chicken salad, egg salad, deviled eggs, omelets, vinagrettes, potato salad: any savory dish where you might use parsley or mint.

[JAZ]

I've eaten a couple of Iranian style rice dishes with dill in them, amongst other herbs I think. Very very good.

A long time ago, I took a class on Turkish cooking where I learned a how to make a great rice dish with dill. It's very easy -- briefly saute rice in lots of butter (1/4 C for 1 cup of rice), add about 1-1/3 C water, half a tsp of salt and 1/4 cup minced dill. Bring to a boil then cover and simmer until water is absorbed and rice starts to form a crust on the bottom of the pan (10-20 minutes). Remove from the heat and let rest for 15 minutes or so.

[HowardLi]

I like it on mashed potatoes.

[Pam R]

I love dill with carrots and potatoes. Simply boil some new potatoes and dress with butter/olive oil, salt and a lot of finely chopped dill. Do the same things with carrots or make a carrot/dill soup. Delicious.

And as Jason mentioned above, I always add dill to my chicken soup.

[Emily_R]

Oh -- I've got a good one for you, that takes a lot of dill. Reproduced from my favorite Greek restaurant in NYC. Take one or two Romaine hearts and finely cut them (basically into ribbons). Add at least half a cup if not a full cup of chopped dill. Add a full bunch or more of chopped scallions. Then take a big hunk of feta cheese and massage it into all of that, so that it is completely incorporated into the salad. Grind a bunch of fresh pepper on it, add some kosher salt, and then dress with good olive oil and a lot of lemon juice. AMAZING.

[Jenni]

Emily_R, you are reminding me of a Madhur Jaffrey recipe from her World Vegetarian book that has similar flavours. I don't have access to the book right now but I remember lightly cooked courgette cooled and mixed with olive oil, lemon, dill and feta. There may have been a few other ingredients, I can't remember. I used to make it quite often in the Summer, very delicious.

[Goatjunky]

I love a good old fashioned dill dip, with sourdough rye and any raw vegetable

[heidih]

I love a good old fashioned dill dip, with sourdough rye and any raw vegetable

Can you elaborate on the ingredients?

[Goatjunky]

this is the basic, sometimes I mess around and mix in other things

1 cup mayo

1 cup sour cream

1 to 2 tablespoons minced onion

couple dashes seasoned salt

1 to 2 tablespoons minced italian parsley

4 to 5 tablespoons minced fresh dill

its best when it has sit for an hour or more. Its fabulous on good bread, and basically any raw veg I can think of.

[David Ross]

Fresh dill is delicious stirred into scrambled eggs. I heat a saute pan over medium heat, plop in a few tablespoons of salted butter, then stir in beaten eggs. And stir and stir to break the curds. When the eggs are almost set, yet still runny, take them off the heat and stir in the fresh dill. Dill is very delicate so if you cook it in the eggs it will lose a lot of flavor. Top the eggs with gravlax for even more levels of flavor.

[Heartsurgeon]

killer dill sauce that I developed for use on salmon...it's good on asparagus as well. I have been known to eat it on saltine crackers...

one whole bunch of dill (with stems, the more the merrier)

1 cup heavy whipping cream

pinch of salt

pinch of black pepper

half a garlic clove

juice of 1/2 lemon

small chunk of shallot or bermuda onion (about 1/2 tablespoon)

blitz the ingredients with a stick blender until you get a savory whipped cream...

the garlic and shallot help to thicken the end product.

takes 30 seconds to make.

allows you to apply dill and lemon to a piece of fish, without having it all run off the protein onto the dish... concentrated goodness. lasts about 1 week in the fridge

Edited June 16, 2012 by Heartsurgeon (log)