Herbs are the clothes other ingredients dress up in. For example, a potato becomes something entirely different when paired with rosemary or parsley or bay. They are transformers, ready to elevate your cooking, and all you have to do is enthusiastically invite loads of them into your kitchen.
Dress Up Any Dish with Herbs
As herbs are typically harvested from a living plant, they tend to have a short lifespan. Consequently, sourcing herbs well, and using them while they are at their peak, is crucial. Your main task is to take the herb quickly from plot to plate in such a way that the best of its qualities come out in the dish. Generally speaking, the softer herbs – parsley, cilantro, basil and so on – have a short window of excellence once harvested and are often added late or upon serving to make the best of their often delicate qualities. The woodier herbs including bay, thyme, and rosemary, are often at their best added earlier in the cooking process.
Sourcing and storing herbs well sets the parameters for how well their qualities will sing in your cooking. The closer in the food chain you get to the person who grew them and the time they are harvested, the better they are likely to be. Farmers’ markets and independent stores are likely to offer the best quality herbs and widest variety. That said, supermarket herbs are a much better prospect than they once were. Wherever you get them, take time to examine them: smell and taste them if you can.
How to Store Herbs
Almost all herbs are best stored with their stems in a glass filled to 2½ inches or so with water; slice-off the very bottom to ensure a clean, fresh cut, and keep them away from direct sunlight and heat. Any herbs you buy sealed in a bag are best opened to allow air to circulate around the leaves. You can store herbs in the fridge: woody herbs should last a week or more, soft herbs a little less. Both should last a little longer washed, thoroughly dried and kept in an airtight container in the fridge.
When you use herbs, remember that your knife affects the flavor hugely. If you finely chop a handful of cilantro to add to a dish, the herb is likely to affect every mouthful, whereas a quick pass of the blade resulting in larger pieces of cilantro is likely to result in some mouthfuls having intense flavor and others not.
If you have even a little space by your kitchen door, grow half a dozen flavorful herbs. Even this seemingly small commitment has the power to change every meal you eat for the better.
Four Less Familiar Types to Try
Lovage
Deeply savory, similar to celery, and rich vegetable stock. Use sparingly with tomatoes, leafy greens, mussels and cheese. Perfect for the gardening-nervous , as it’s almost impossible to kill.
Lemon Verbena
Like lemons, only more so. This is my favorite herb, with a scent and flavor full of lemon sherbet and lively zest. As with bay, its flavor is usually infused rather than the leaf actually eaten. It makes exceptional syrups, vinegars, custards and sorbets, as well as a wonderful herb tea, on its own or with mint.
French Tarragon
Enthusiasts might use this more days than not, yet it remains under-appreciated. Its thin leaves smell and taste of milky, peppery aniseed, with hints of citrus and mint. Famously good with chicken, I love it with green beans, potatoes and tomatoes. And if you make tarragon vinegar once, you will be a convert.
Lemon Thyme
This bright variation on the common thyme is one I couldn’t be without. It carries all the familiar resinous, piney delight of thyme, only it does so more brightly. Use as you would common thyme for a different mood.
Learn more about how to use herbs creatively from Regional Editor, Julia Platt Leonard.
Check out the rest of our food education series:
- Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Olive Oil
- Using Salt Correctly in Cooking
- Dress Up Any Dish with Herbs
Or, for another way to expand your epicurean horizons, try our liquor education:
Story by Mark Diacono
Styling by Anna Franklin
Photography by Dave Bryce
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