Читать книгу The French Menu Cookbook: The Food and Wine of France - Season by Delicious Season - Richard Olney - Страница 42

For my own purposes, I have settled, finally, on the following herbs. Among those to be used fresh: parsley, chives, tarragon, chervil (the traditional fines herbes, alone or in combination), basil, dill, wild fennel, and savory.

Those to be used dried: thyme, bay leaf, rosemary, oregano (wild marjoram), savory and wild fennel.

Others are in my garden, but usually remain untouched. Hyssop I occasionally use—sparingly—when receiving erudite curiosity seekers. Borage, sage, and mint find their place mostly in bouquets (not garnis), and coriander (whose seeds are essential in many brine and vinegar conserves) I planted only once (its tender green leaves, known in French as persil chinois, and in the United States as Chinese parsley, are much used in Arab and Oriental cooking); I found the odor so intensely repellent that I could never bring myself to try it. The only two that I regret not having are cultivated marjoram, neither the seeds nor plants of which I have been able to find in France, and serpolet, a variety of wild thyme, the perfume of which resembles savory more than thyme but is more fragile and delicate than either. In the past, the mountainsides of Provence were covered with it, but for a reason that none can explain it is rapidly disappearing.

A bouquet garni is a bundle of herbs tied together in order to simplify their removal from a dish at the end of its cooking process.

For those who are in a position to raise or collect their own herbs, the following things should be kept in mind:

1. Thyme flowers are finer in flavor than the leaves, but at the moment that the plant is in flower (April through June, depending on the climate), the leaves also have a stronger and more characteristic perfume. The year’s provision is best made at this time.

2. Oregano must be collected when in full flower (July and August). It may be bought in dried bouquets from Italian grocers and, in this form, is always fresher and more fragrant than that found in jars or cans.

3. Perennial savory has a more pungent but finer flavor than the annual variety, which, although useful in the absence of the former, has a vague suggestion of kerosene to its scent.

4. Rosemary is always powerful and may be collected at all times of the year. Although delicious, it should be used with circumspection. Curiously, the smoke of burning or smoldering rosemary is a far more voluptuous and delicate incense than that of any other herb. Any fish, meat, fowl, or vegetable grilled over coals is enhanced if, during the last few moments of the grilling process, a small handful of rosemary leaves is sprinkled over the coals.

A jar of mixed herbs of one’s own confection (for not only does one not know what is contained in the commercial mixtures, but they are always too old, with the result that they lend only a vague, powdery, peppery quality) is practical. Nearly all recipes that call for a complicated dosage of several different herbs are happily supplied by a single pinch of the mixture. The mixed herbs should be dry, but as nearly as possible of the year’s production. Do not be tempted by the miraculous blender to reduce your mixture to powder—the flavor will very rapidly be lost. For those recipes that require a pinch of powdered herbs, it is much the best to pound them in a mortar at the last minute.