Cilantro, Basil, Parsley, and Dill
The culinary herbs we use have two categories, the tender, floral and green ones that we use raw and the woody and resinous ones with essential oils that we often dry and simmer in long slow cooking methods.
The common fresh herbs are parsley, cilantro, basil, tarragon, and dill.
Use these fresh herbs at the end of cooking or when you serve the dish. Stir them in at the last minute or add a handful of torn leaves on the top.
Their flavor and appearance degrade the more you mess with them. Don’t chop them into tiny bits.
Bringing them Home
The herbs should look fresh and not wilted. These items don’t last, purchase them as close to the time you need to use them. You can store parsley, dill, and cilantro wrapped in a damp towel inside a plastic bag.
Store basil on the counter like a bouquet. I snip the ends and place each stem in a jar of cool water as if I was making a flower arrangement. This herb of summer doesn’t like the cold.
Flavor Affinities
The intense flavors of fresh herbs brighten up mild-flavored dishes like potatoes and beans or vegetables like corn, artichokes, asparagus, and peas. They often become the star in egg dishes and go well with cream, cheese, and yogurt.
Let them balance strong flavors like garlic and lemon in dressings and marinades.
Basil — Matches well with the summer vegetables, tomatoes, corn, eggplant, and garlic. Use it in Italian cooking as well as Southeast Asian cuisines.
Dill — Freshens up potatoes, carrots, and peas. It goes wells with cream, cheese, and yogurt. Use it with rice as the Greeks do.
Cilantro– Goes with avocado, corn, chiles, and cucumbers. Native to Asia, use it in Indian and Asian cuisines. It was adopted quickly in Latin America as it tastes like the herb Culantro that is native to the Americas.
Parsley — Use this herb with lemon, garlic, potatoes. Parsley is used extensively in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine, where you will see it standing as the primary leafy green in salads. Tabouleh is a parsley salad with bulgur, not a bulgur salad with parsley that you see in the United States.
The Simplest Recipes
Pesto
Pesto is a blank slate recipe. The standing ingredients are garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil. The interchangeable items are the herbs, nuts, and cheese.
My favorite combinations are parsley with walnuts and cilantro with pepitas. Let your imagination and what you have available guide your decisions. Because of the high cost of pine nuts, I rarely use them. Walnuts are the closest substitution, but any nut or seed will make pesto.
You can even leave out the nuts and the cheese entirely, to make a green herb salsa.
Basil Pesto
- 2 cups basil leaves
- 1–2 cloves garlic
- 1–2 teaspoons lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ cup toasted pine nuts or walnuts
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- ¼ cup olive oil
Blend all together in a blender. Enjoy with pasta, white beans, steamed rice, as a sauce for seafood or chicken.
Drying for Storage
If you can’t use all of what you purchased in three or four days. Dry the herbs on the counter. I remove any wrapping and lay the stems out in a single layer on a dry towel to absorb extra water. Let them dry on top of your refrigerator. That’s usually the warmest place in the kitchen. Turn the stems over every other day for the first couple of days and then when they are dehydrated, remove the leaves from the stems and save them in a sealed container.
Even though so many chefs say not to use these herbs dried, I find that this works well with all herbs except cilantro. When you do cook with them, crumble up the leaves in your hand and add them near the end of cooking. When you dry them yourself, you will find that their quality is significantly better than what you will purchase at the store.
Grow your Own Herbs
Most herbs are more closely related to weeds and native plants than they are to cultivated vegetables.
Their aggressive growth makes them easy to grow on your own. Picking up a few potted seedlings at the garden store and keeping them on a sunny windowsill or back patio, is an easy start to begin gardening.
There is nothing more rewarding than picking a few stems for the meal you are making right now. And the freshness and flavor will enhance your cooking without any extra effort.
Enjoy them at their best.
Fresh herbs are an easy way to add flavor to any dish. They don’t need or want long cooking, so add them at the end. Their aroma and floral notes will freshen up any meal.
When you buy fresh herbs, use them within a few days for optimum flavor. Experiment with herbs by adding a few leaves to your salad or on top of any dish you make.