One of our more green fingered regulars popped in the other night with mega carrier bag full of herbs from his garden. Wild fennel, mint, marjoram, garlic – you name it and if it’s possible to grow in a seaside garden on the Kent Coast it was there. There was nothing for it but to set to work making flavoured oils, herb butters and a mountain of tabouleh but even after a jug of freshly minted mojito (or in my condition, elderflower presse….) there was still no way we’d be able to do justice to the remaining in time.
I’ve never been partial to dried herbs, the sachets of dried dust you buy on your holidays in Provence are the usually the herb equivalent of Retsina. Taste and smell amazing whilst languishing on some pine scented Island in the Med yet somehow mysteriously transform into household detergent and ashes the minute you touch down back in Blighty. Despite all of my misgivings, I just couldn’t stand the thought of the last few herbs going to waste, so I dragged out our drying machine and began filling the trays with fennel fronds, rosemary sticks, oregano, chives and mint.
We’ve had a really good year for amazingly sweet cherry tomatoes and most nights the smell of the lightly seasoned fruit has wafted out to sea in the wee hours with me waking to find trays of dark dark red shrunken discs of chewy densely flavoured tomato. Depending on the size, our dryer (which is a bit like a cross between a vegetable stack steamer and a hairdryer) takes about 12 hours to dry the life out of a tomato wedge or 6 to reduce a baby plum tomato down to half size.
With herbs it’s a different story. Within about 10 minutes, the whole kitchen smelt like a edible pot-pourri and an hour later I had the most amazing looking branches of feathery fennel with stems just like curry flavoured crisps. The chives were the best deep-fried leeks I’d ever tasted – crisp, oniony and without the usual slightly oily overtones nor the inevitable burnt black bits. The mint screamed to be added to the last leaves of fresh to make an exceptionally pungent peppermint tea and the oregano was just pizza flavour personified! The rosemary stems made it onto the menu as the pungent skewer for halloumi and sweet pepper kebabs.
All in all, I’m now beginning to see the point of dried herbs. Admittedly, I’m not sure how long the flavours will last or when they’ll all suddenly realise that they’re not in the Med and turn to dust. Yet somehow I feel a bit like ancient man who, just when he though bread couldn’t get any better, invented toast.
