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Cooking With Herbs
Using herbs for cooking in the kitchen is what originally led to the creation of Hazelwood Herb Farm. Let me explain: As a teenager I was fortunate to have a home cooked meal every day, prepared by my mother. Mum was fine as long as it was just our family but when company was arriving for dinner she started to panic. I enjoyed being around her in the kitchen and just fell in to giving a helping hand. Time progressed, and eventually by the time I was sixteen I had started to get more involved and was cooking some of the meals by myself. It was a typical British household where most of the seasoning of food came from salt, pepper, Bisto powder or Oxo cubes. Oh and there was the horrible dried sage which came out every Christmas but more of that later. I remember finding a jar of herbes de Provence one day, in a fancy kitchen store and bringing it home to add to a red wine beef stew. That was it-I was hooked on herbs! It was a long journey between that day and the creation of Hazelwood but I never lost my passion for cooking.
As we approach the holiday season it reminds me of those days. My father would make his annual visit to the kitchen to make prawn cocktails or melon slices with ginger and sugar sprinkled on them. It was also the time that the aforementioned dried sage was hauled out of the cupboard, dusted off and added to the turkey stuffing along with the requisite onions. For many years I thought that was how turkey stuffing was supposed to taste. I mean donít get me wrong as I ate every last morsel, and just like Oliver used to ask for more. It was a long time before I understood that herbs are meant to add some depth of flavour to food. Not to take over and dominate the dish. All of the above leads me in to a Cooking with Herbs 101, for Seniors 101.
Cooking with herbs is fun, tasty and healthy. Once a few basics are understood it is as easy as adding salt. And, salt is something that you will find over time that you use less of, as the herbs themselves give so much flavour to a dish.
If a recipe calls for 1 Tablespoon of fresh herbs you can substitute 1 teaspoon of dried herbs (the ratio is 3:1) and just reverse the formula if the recipe calls for dried herbs. The big difference between fresh and dried is how they stand up to lengthy cooking times, and if there is liquid in the recipe.
Fresh herbs are usually added towards the end of the cooking process. The oils that give all the flavour are easily boiled away if added to the pot too early. So for example if you were making a spaghetti sauce the fresh basil or oregano (or both) would be added when the dish was five minutes away from being served. If using dried herbs add them once you have finished cooking. Turn off the heat, stir in, put on the lid and leave for about half an hour. This will allow the herbs to absorb moisture, swell up and release their flavour. Reheat gently and serve.
It is not always possible to add fresh herbs towards the end of cooking and a good example would be shepherds pie, scalloped potatoes or any type of layered casserole. But because the herbs are trapped inside and surrounded by moisture they will work just fine. Dried herbs of course will swell up as the casserole cooks and also give off lots of good taste.
Oven cooking presents some different challenges. Roast potatoes are great sprinkled with rosemary, thyme or oregano (plus a little garlic to keep the vampires away). However roast spuds are normally cooked in a very hot oven for around 45 minutes to an hour. The poor herbs would be blackened specks if they had to endure this cooking time. So the trick is to toss the potatoes with some olive oil in a bowl, and then place them on a cookie sheet and pop in the oven. Do not clean the bowl! When the potatoes are starting to brown, remove them from the oven. Toss them in the bowl with a little more oil, herbs, garlic, salt and pepper and put back in on the cookie sheet for 5-10 minutes.
Now in conclusion letís go back and revisit the turkey. This holiday season give fresh sage a try in your stuffing. Our family favourite is 2 packages pork sausage meat, one small white sliced loaf cut in to cubes, one large onion finely chopped, 4 large carrots grated, 2 stalks celery finely chopped. Add º cup fresh sage, 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary and 2 tablespoons fresh thyme. Finely chop all the herbs and add to the rest of the ingredients. Gently mix together and pull apart the sausage meat in to small pieces. Add Ω cup chicken stock just before stuffing the bird. Cook in turkey as per normal.
Until next time; Healthy Eating and Happy Gardening!
Questions about Herbs and Gardening? Richard has the answers
Richard White
Hazelwood Herb Farm
13576 Adshead Road
Ladysmith, B.C. V9G 1H6
Canada
250-245-8007
info@hazelwoodherbfarm.com
www.hazelwoodherbfarm.com
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