Fresh herbs

[cakewalk]

I guess this is an expansion of the thread on lemon verbena.

I have several plants of fresh herbs on the windowsill. The mint and thyme are still going strong from last year (and I'd swear the thyme is much more fragrant now, or is that just my imagination?), and I also have chives, oregano, and tarragon (absolute heaven). I use them in salads, and I just plain enjoy them as plants, but I'd like to have more of an idea of how to really take advantage of them. Last year I had a plant of "mini-basil" -- small tiny basil leaves, since regular basil is just too big for the apartment. It grew like mad and was absolutely wonderful (made great tomato sauce), and I still have bunches of leaves in the freezer. But I haven't seen this plant at all this season. Can other herbs be frozen? And what sorts of things do you do with fresh herbs? I can't wait to read your ideas!

[Liza]

You could make a pesto from combining some of your favorites. I know there's a Jerry Traunfeld ("The Herbfarm Cookbook") recipe for a green gazpacho. Perhaps a Google search will find out if it's ever been posted. Lemme hunt round...

EDIT:

found his roasted parsnips with thyme recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=104126

Here's a link to a chat with Jerry Traunfeld, discussing fresh herbs:

http://table.mpr.org/souptonuts/kitchen_herbs.html

[tommy]

i've made salads completely out of herbs. dress with a little evoo, lemon juice, s/p. wow. it's quite a side dish.

wrap some fish in foil with lemon slices and herbs. throw in oven for 12 minutes. yaaaay!!

shove them under the skin of your chicken breast or whole chicken.

[Andy Lynes]

Fresh herbs make an appearance in many sauces - butter sauces like bearnaise, mayonnasie based sauces like tartar, viniagrette style sauces like gribiche and ravigote, tomato sauces (basil being a good example). Salsa Verda is full of them, corinader is essential to hot salsas. You can add them to soups and stews, roast meat with them make salads with them. They are basically everywhere in French and Italian cuisines so it's quite difficult to know where to start to give specific examples.

[Bouland]

I'd throw my vote towards an herb salad. It consumes a lot of herbs, but it sounds like you have a lot to consume. If you'd like to see one way making such a salad, click here. In this case the salad is an accessory to a terrine, but it can be used in other ways, too. My experience is that the salad has too strong a flavor to be eaten in large quantity like a regular green salad, but as a handful of bites, it's quite nice.

[Jaymes]

In addition to all of the above, and other cooking uses, here's some more things I do:

If they get too big and have to be trimmed and I don't need any in the immediate future, I tie up bundles and hang them upside down to dry.

And, I never go to a dinner party without tying up some of my fresh herbs into the bow that I put on the hostess gift... Anything from a bottle of liqueur or wine with a bow and fresh herbs around its neck, to two packages of particularly attractive or funny paper cocktail napkins looks great with fresh herbs tied into the bow.

[Basildog]

We make herb oils by blitzing said herb with evoo and a pinch of salt.Keeps well and goes nice with Risotto or anything that needs a touch of va va voom.You can pass it throuh muslin for a proper oil, but we keep it unpassed , co were so rustic.

[Jaymes]

We make herb oils by blitzing said herb with evoo and a pinch of salt.Keeps well and goes nice with Risotto or anything that needs a touch of va va voom.You can pass it throuh muslin for a proper oil, but we keep it unpassed , co were so rustic.

Yeah, I do that too.

And, speaking of hostess gifts, when you infuse olive oil with herbs and put it in a pretty bottle with more fresh herbs tied around the neck... it's beautiful!

I have a very productive garden and my motto is: giveaway, giveaway, giveaway.

Not only is it fun, but it keeps the invitations coming!!

[cakewalk]

Thanks to all for the suggestions. So tonight it's fish w/lemon and herbs a la tommy (thank you). There was a recipe for zucchini strands w/mint on the Traunfeld link (thanks Liza) that also looks nice (and I think even I can manage it). And the herb salads. And herbs in olive oil (I've seen that in shops all over the place, and I never thought about just DOING it.) Actually I can't wait to go home and start the massacre of my plants.

There was a recipe for roasted parsnips w/thyme. I will try it (the only thing I've ever used parsnips in was chicken soup), but I have a general question, and it usually arises whenever I see recipes with fresh herbs in them. Many of the ingredients have very strong flavors. I simply don't see how the thyme can stand up to them. Look:

2 lbs parsnips

3 tbs unsalted butter

1 1/2 tbs packed dark brown sugar

1 tbs balsamic vinegar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground bl. pepper

3 tbs coarsely chopped fresh thyme

Now I'm no expert (understatement, natch), but I look at that recipe and think to myself: the thyme is going to get lost in there, it will never be able to compete with the brown sugar and vinegar. I can't even see it blending. (I can get really crazy and try the recipe both with and without the thyme, and report back to the commissioner.)

When you cook with herbs, do you find that they tend to get overpowered by the other ingredients?

[Jaymes]

When you cook with herbs, do you find that they tend to get overpowered by the other ingredients?

I, for one, do not. In fact, I find that it's the other way around.

If I'm not careful when cooking with fresh herbs, it is easy to completely overpower the main ingredient, which is supposed to be the star of the show!

That's more difficult to do with dried herbs, but fresh ones can be amazingly powerful.

[tommy]

Thanks to all for the suggestions. So tonight it's fish w/lemon and herbs a la tommy (thank you).

cakewalk,

check out this thread for a better description of the tin foil method. i know there is also discussion on this on the Dinner thread, but it's too damned big to search on. you may want to page through though. although, the above thread was an accurate desription of what i did with the foil method.

good luck, and let us know what happened.

[bushey]

Speaking of tin foil method, this week's NY Times Food section had a Bittman recipe for clambake on the grill that I was planning to try tonight.

To paraphrase:

On a double thickness of foil put some mussels, littlenecks, large shrimp. (Linguica or sausage is optional. I plan to use some). Squeeze some lime juice on and top with some minced garlic, ginger and fresh cilantro, basil and mint. Close package tightly and put in a closed grill, covered. Cook about 10-15 minutes. Open packages and drizzle with a bit of soy sauce and a squeeze of lime.

re: thyme I concur that it won't get lost in the mix. I make a marinade for poultry with balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, olive oil, black pepper and thyme that seasons chicken or turkey beautifully. The roasted parsnips sound fantastic.

[southern girl]

I admit to being lazy....large handfuls of fresh herbs....basil tarragon, chives , thyme an oregano tossed with fresh pasta and good olive oil or plugra with a grate of fresh parmeggiano.

[stellabella]

no one mentioned tea. steeping fresh herbs in hot water creates a very pleasant and soothing tonic.. in ecuador i have been served tea made from fresh oregano and [separately, not combined] fresh rosemary for "stomach upset"--rosemary tea is simply refreshing, even if you feel fine

i am sure there are loads of other known medicinal uses for thyme, oregano, rosemary, marjoram, etc, teas.

[oliva]

How long do the herb infused oils last? I believe they can go rancid, esp if they have garlic in it. How does everyone infuse their oils with basil or rosemary for eg.? Blitz it in the processer with olive oil or just add the herbs directly to the olive oil bottle to let it infuse?

[Jaymes]

How long do the herb infused oils last? I believe they can go rancid, esp if they have garlic in it. How does everyone infuse their oils with basil or rosemary for eg.? Blitz it in the processer with olive oil or just add the herbs directly to the olive oil bottle to let it infuse?

I have never tried blitzing, but somehow don't find it an encouraging idea.

I give infused oil often as a hostess gift, or part of gourmet baskets that I make up for friends at Christmastime.

So, although when I am making up some for myself, I just put the herb right into the store-bought bottle of oil; for gifts, I select attractive bottles at some sort of container store.

Wash a whole sprig of the herb and let it dry well. GENTLY heat oil. Put sprig (or combinations, such as oregano, thyme, rosemary, bay leaf, crushed red pepper flakes) into bottle and pour in warmed (not hot) oil and seal.

Allow to sit for two weeks or so in a cool, dark place (but not the fridge) before using.

Then, you can remove the herb. If you leave it in, the herb flavor will continue to get stronger... so, just be prepared for that.

These infused oils can go rancid quickly. Although it is not usually advised to put olive oil in the fridge, I think it's a good idea with an infused oil after you've allowed it to sit for the initial two weeks.

[foodie52]

Do not infuse fresh garlic in olive oil if you don't plan on using it within 24 hours. It can make you very sick.

[tommy]

cakewalk, how did the fish turn out?

[cakewalk]

cakewalk, how did the fish turn out?

Not bad, but I need a lot more experimentation on which herbs to use with which fish.

I had some tuna fillets and rainbow trout. With the tuna I used fresh basil, lots and lots of garlic, lemon, salt and pepper, and NO CAPERS (I just don't like them). With the trout I used tarragon and thyme and all the rest (but a bit less garlic). It was much better, but that might be because I like trout a lot better than tuna. The fish, BTW, was much better the next day when I ate it cold. I also made potato salad, because I couldn't wait to do stuff that I read on the potato salad thread (I would never have thought of pouring vinegar on while the potatoes were still warm). The potato salad came out great (and I'll be eating it for the rest of the week).

Question to all about the olive oil stuff: will it still turn rancid even if the herb sprigs are removed after infusion, or only if the sprigs are left in?

[B Edulis]

Do not infuse fresh garlic in olive oil if you don't plan on using it within 24 hours. It can make you very sick.

According to Madeline Kamman, in The Making of a Cook, infusing herbs in oil can make you dead! She goes on and on about how infusing herbs in oil can be a recipe for botulism. Here's a short quote:

"The skins of [many] vegetables are liable to be contaminated, even after you wash and dry them well, with many kinds of bacteria, which of course are undetectable since they are microscopic. Clostridium botulinum is one of these bacteria and especially nasty because it can survive anywhere there is no oxygen and very little acid."

She goes on to describe death by botulism, but then says not to be put off from making flavored oils, just follow safety precautions, which she outlines. They precautions are intense, and include sterilizing and the caveat not to use oils more than 48 hours old unless they are cooked.

Jeez! It put me off from making flavored oils, I'll tell you that! (That's why I'm interested in syrups) But she's really a clean freak and maybe that's one of the reasons I don't use that book so much......

Anybody here have an educated opinion about whether she's exagerating the risk?

[Rail Paul]

["The skins of [many] vegetables are liable to be contaminated, even after you wash and dry them well, with many kinds of bacteria, which of course are undetectable since they are microscopic. Clostridium botulinum is one of these bacteria and especially nasty because it can survive anywhere there is no oxygen and very little acid."

I wonder if irradiation would kill the botulism in garlic or other veggies? It is believed to kill various bacteria in ground beef.

Wegman's ran a full page ad in the NJ section of the Times trumpeting its irradiation techniques. I'll find it when I get home and give their hotline a call to ask...

[rlynnw]

Whenever I have "too much" thyme, I usually slow roast thick tomato slices sprinkled with olive oil, a pinch of sugar and salt, and mound of fresh thyme on top. These are great in sandwiches, in salads or by themselves.

[Rail Paul]

["The skins of [many] vegetables are liable to be contaminated, even after you wash and dry them well, with many kinds of bacteria, which of course are undetectable since they are microscopic. Clostridium botulinum is one of these bacteria and especially nasty because it can survive anywhere there is no oxygen and very little acid."

I wonder if irradiation would kill the botulism in garlic or other veggies? It is believed to kill various bacteria in ground beef.

Wegman's ran a full page ad in the NJ section of the Times trumpeting its irradiation techniques. I'll find it when I get home and give their hotline a call to ask...

I spoke with two people who have knowlege of the issues on irradiating vegetables and spices.

Currently, FDA does not allow the radiation of fresh vegetables. Garlic, basil, thyme, etc are vegetables for this purpose. Powdered and dried spices and vegetables are often irradiated, especially those imported into the US. When irradiation on a specific product has been defined as Generally Regarded As Safe (GRAS) a specific notice is not required. Same rules apply to the various food dyes and preservatives.

It appears that there has not been an interest in irradiating fresh vegetables, fresh spices, or fresh herbs, nor have any requests been made to change the regs.

I didn't think to ask if the irradiation kills the botulism bacteria, but the surebeam corp's website says most bacteria on food are killed by the electric charge, and the ripening process is often slowed down.

Paul

[B Edulis]

Gosh, do you think Popeel will have a home irradiation machine available soon? But wait, if you order before midnight, you get a bonus lead apron!

[tommy]

Whenever I have "too much" thyme, I usually slow roast thick tomato slices sprinkled with olive oil, a pinch of sugar and salt, and mound of fresh thyme on top. These are great in sandwiches, in salads or by themselves.

wow. i tried something like this tonite, and it was incredible. thanks for the idea. i'm posting details on the "dinner" thread.