Working with flavours

Sue Lawrence delves into the herb garden and gives us some fresh and exciting recipes

Fresh herbs add flavour, colour, texture and vitality to any dish.

Now they are readily available in packets from supermarkets, delicatessens and even from your local corner shop. They can be bought in small pots, to sit on a sunny window-sill. You can buy packets of seed to plant in the garden. However you buy them, use herbs in abundance.

As a general rule, the more pungent and assertive flavours usually work better with equally dominant flavours. Although the marriage of game with thyme is traditional, why not try other strongly flavoured herbs, for a change: venison with oregano, marjoram or bay, for example. Or use a herb recently imported from the Far East, coriander, with rabbit, quail, shellfish or mushrooms.

Fish has endless possibilities which stretch far beyond the ubiquitous parsley sprig used to garnish Dover sole. What about combining cod with rosemary or good old fish pie with fennel. Shellfish and smoked fish can often blend with strong flavours: try mussels or prawns with oregano, or scallops with sweet cicely. Use smoked mackerel with sage, or smoked haddock with lovage or flatparsley.

‘Meaty' fish such as fresh tuna works well with punchy chives, celery-flavoured lovage or even that archetypal lamb accompaniment, mint.

Vegetables, cheese and egg dishes work with most herbs, and indeed, simple, even bland, food such as scrambled eggs or omelettes, can be elevated to gourmet status by the addition of some freshly chopped herbs such as chervil, rocket, ...

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• By : Sue Lawrence
• In : Food
• Issue : 55
• Page : 64
• Words : 958