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Cooking with Herbs
On Sunday September 18, 2005, I demonstrated cooking with herbs at Blandy Farm on a spectacular fall day, along with my able assistant, daughter Eleanor. I’d like to thank Tim Farmer and the staff at Blandy: they are always most amiable, accommodating, and helpful hosts.
I remarked at the time that asking me to cook with fresh herbs is simply to ask me to cook. All my cooking is with fresh herbs. I have never thought about cooking without herbs—they are that intrinsic to cooking well.
Here at the restaurant, we have our own herb garden as it were, mostly some containers on the deck, but we manage to grow chives, spearmint, lavender, rosemary, basil, sage, lemongrass, oregano, orange mint, pineapple sage, savory, and thyme. In most years, we have roses, violas, pansies, and nasturtiums for edible blossoms. And all this grows in a tiny space, which is to say, there is no reason why you cannot have fresh herbs at home.
We’re also quite fortunate to have two local growers who supply us with a bounty of herbs in season, such as fresh bay leaves, borage, cilantro, and stem celery. And of course, we are constantly ordering still more herbs such as chervil and Thai basil from our produce company. A restaurant such as ours has an insatiable hunger for fresh herbs.
We started the demonstration with a little show and tell from the collection of fresh herbs that I brought with me. I have extended this into a basic herb primer that you can read if you choose.
As always, I cook without formal, written recipes. There is clearly method behind my madness and I have attempted to convey that in the so-called recipes below. Treat them more as guidelines and feel free to deviate as you please and you will have captured the spirit in which I offer them.
Recipes
Here are the nine dishes that I cooked. I was aiming to give an overview of a wide variety of herbs, foodstuffs, and cooking techniques.
Sautéed Cod in Warm Vinaigrette Fines Herbes Pasta with Smoked Salmon and Dill Pan-Fried Chicken Breast with Prosciutto, Sage, and Capers Pan-Fried Herb-Marinated Pork Loin Steak
It wouldn’t be summer without basil and it wouldn’t be eating at One Block West without pesto, that incredibly versatile basil sauce. Try swirling a spoonful into a finished tomato sauce for pasta, beating a spoonful with your scrambled eggs, or spreading it on bread for a salami and cheese sandwich. Don’t be without pesto in your refrigerator!
You can also make pesto with cilantro, mint, or parsley. Cilantro pesto would be fantastic on tacos de pollo, mint pesto on grilled lamb chops, and parsley pesto with roasted ham or pork. You may substitute walnuts for pine nuts, or use a mixture of the two.
If you are making a small quantity such as I did, you may want to chop the ingredients by hand for a rough, country-style pesto. Otherwise, use your blender for a more refined pesto.
1 c basil leaves (roughly chopped if using a blender) ¼ c pine nuts ¼ c extra virgin olive oil ¼ c hard grating cheese, such as pecorino romano, grated
If making pesto by hand, chop the basil and pine nuts, then add the oil and cheese. If making pesto in the blender or food processor, blend the first three ingredients, adding more oil as necessary to make the mixture work. Stir in the cheese by hand. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
This is about the easiest appetizer in the world to make. I generally sprinkle sliced sun-dried tomatoes over the top.
1 log goat cheese, softened ½ c pesto, or to taste salt and pepper to taste ¼ c pine nuts ¼ c sun-dried tomatoes, optional
Mix the goat cheese, pesto, and optionally, some finely diced sun-dried tomatoes. Adjust pesto, salt, and pepper to taste. Spread on a plate. Sprinkle pine nuts and sun-dried tomatoes over the top. Serve with croustades or crackers.
Here’s another dish that highlights the glories of summer: fresh tomatoes and basil. The canonical recipe calls only for whole basil leaves, which we use at the restaurant, but I also love to drizzle a very thin pesto over the top for a garnish. If you don’t have fresh tomatoes at the peak of flavor, don’t even think about trying this recipe.
Fresh tomatoes Fresh mozzarella Fresh basil leaves Pesto Pine nuts Salt and pepper to taste
Slice the tomatoes (peel the tomatoes optionally) and mozzarella into slices of approximately the same thickness. Arrange them any way you like, tucking a fresh basil leaf between each slice of mozzarella and tomato. Sometimes we create a line of tomatoes and mozzarella across the plate. Sometimes we do a ring. Sometimes we stack the whole thing up, reassembling the tomato as we go. Thin pesto with extra virgin olive oil to make a thin sauce and drizzle over the top. Sprinkle with pine nuts. Dust with salt and pepper to taste.
Sautéed Cod in Warm Vinaigrette Fines Herbes
I love to make fish this way: sautéed and finished with a vinaigrette. It doesn’t sell well at the restaurant, but when I make it for demonstrations, people love it. I think people have a hard time with vinaigrette and fish, because they associate, rightly or wrongly, vinaigrette with salad.
I used cod in this demo because that’s what we had on the menu the night before. Use any white fish that you like. Corvina, grouper, rockfish, snapper, sablefish, and countless other fish would work just fine.
Fines herbes is a classic French combination, traditionally of four herbs. Years ago, I used to be certain what the correct four herbs were; however, the older I get, the more things tend to gray, not only my hair. Each chef has a preferred combination of fines herbes. Herbs that are more or less traditional are parsley, chervil, chives, tarragon, and perhaps dill. My combination is parsley, chervil, chives, and dill, in equal proportion.
1 T vinegar (rice, white wine, sherry) 2 T extra virgin olive oil 2 T minced fines herbes 1 shallot, finely minced vegetable oil Wondra flour 2-4 fish fillets salt and pepper to taste
Heat a sauté pan over high heat. Mix the vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, herbs, and shallots in a bowl. Dredge the fish in the flour and knock off the excess. Sauté until the fish is done, turning half way through. Fish generally takes about ten minutes per inch of thickness. When the fish is cooked, pour the vinaigrette over and let it warm for 30 seconds or so. Serve immediately.
By the way, Wondra is a granulated flour from General Mills that makes a very fine crust. You can omit it if you are using a non-stick pan.
Pasta with Smoked Salmon and Dill
This is definitely not a healthy dish for every day eating, but for a splurge, why not? Cream, dill, and smoked salmon go together so well.
½ c heavy cream tiny bit of minced garlic 2 c cooked pasta 2 T fresh dill, chopped 2 oz smoked salmon, chopped salt and white pepper to taste grated cheese and dill for garnish
Heat the cream in a sauté pan over high heat with the minced garlic until reduced about halfway. Add the pasta and turn to warm. Once warm, add the dill and smoked salmon, turning to distribute it evenly. Remove from the heat and season to taste with salt and white pepper. Garnish with grated cheese and dill and serve immediately. Serves two.
Pan-Fried Chicken Breast with Prosciutto, Sage, and Capers
This dish is a hybrid between Veal Saltimbocca and Chicken alla Piccata. When pan-frying chicken breasts, I suggest you butterfly them to a consistent thickness so that they cook more evenly and more quickly.
Wondra flour Salt and pepper 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, butterflied (or 6 tenderloins) 1 T vegetable oil 2 slices prosciutto, chopped 4-6 sage leaves, minced 2 t pickled capers and juice 1 T chicken or veal demiglace (or broth) water
Heat a sauté pan over high heat. Meanwhile, mix the flour with a pinch of salt and pepper. When the pan is hot, film it with the oil. Dredge the chicken in the flour and shake off the excess. Cook on one side until you can see that the edges are cooked, about three minutes. Flip the chicken and finish cooking, about another two minutes. If you are not sure the chicken is done, cut a piece open. If it is white all the way through, it is done. When the chicken is done, add the prosciutto, sage, capers, and demiglace. Mix well and add a little water to make a pan sauce. Transfer the chicken to a warm plate and pour the pan sauce over.
If using meat broth rather than demiglace, after the breast has cooked, remove it from the pan and keep warm. Continue reducing your sauce over high heat until it is a thick as you want it.
The Vietnamese are fond of making dishes with a light caramel. You can mimic these dishes with light brown sugar, if you don’t have time to make a caramel syrup.
1 stalk of lemongrass, cleaned and finely minced 1 1”-section of ginger, peeled and finely minced 2 cloves garlic, finely minced 1 T light brown sugar 1 T fish sauce 1 t coarsely ground black pepper (or more to taste) 1 T vegetable oil ½ lb shrimp, cleaned water
To clean lemongrass, remove the tough outer leaves, to get to the creamy pink inner leaves. Cut off the stalk about 5” from the roots. Cut off the roots. Slice into thin rings and then mince finely.
Mix the lemongrass, ginger, garlic, brown sugar, fish sauce, black pepper, and vegetable oil. Marinate the shrimp in this for a couple of minutes.
Heat a sauté pan over high heat. Pour the shrimp and marinade into the pan when hot. When the shrimp are halfway cooked, turn them over and finish cooking. Add water as necessary to create a simple pan sauce. Adjust the seasoning. You will probably not need salt because fish sauce is very salty.
Here’s a dish that shows off some non-Western European herbs that are very simple to grow at home: cilantro and Thai basil. No two batches are the same because this is another clean out the refrigerator dish.
2 T vegetable oil 1 T essential fried rice paste (see below) 1 t coarsely ground black pepper ½ c each of various ingredients (diced carrots, green onions, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.) 3 c cold long-grained rice 1 T fish sauce ½ c cilantro leaves ½ c Thai basil leaves
Heat a large sauté pan over high heat and then add the oil. Then add the Thai fried rice paste and black pepper. Stir well and cook for a minute or so. Then add any raw ingredients that you want to cook (such as carrots). When they are cooked, add the rice and any ingredients that just need to be warmed. Stir well. Add fish sauce to taste. When done, stir in the fresh herbs off the heat and serve immediately.
The white and black pepper kick in a surprising amount of heat. Should you want more, make some nam prik, sliced Thai bird chiles in fish sauce, to spoon over according to your tolerance for heat.
Essential Fried Rice Paste. Many Thai dishes start with a paste fried in oil and this dish is no different. The pastes are made in large granite mortars with heavy pestles. I use one at home. At the restaurant, we use the huge Vita-Prep which will liquefy anything in seconds. At your house, do your best with what you’ve got, although a household blender or food processor isn’t going to do a great job.
1 bunch cilantro, preferably with roots 1 bunch Thai basil 3 shallots, peeled and roughly chopped 2 T white peppercorns (or 1 T ground white pepper)
Remove the stems and roots from the cilantro and Thai basil and roughly chop. Reserve the leaves (for the fried rice recipe above, for example). Pound all the ingredients to a paste in a mortar, or do the best that you can with a blender (in which case, start with ground pepper). If you need to add liquid to get the blender to work, add vegetable oil.
Pan-Fried Herb-Marinated Pork Loin Steak
This is a marinade that I typically use for pork tenderloin or chicken breasts for the grill. I had never done a pork loin steak this way before, but it was so good that I will keep this in my little bag of tricks. I suppose you can buy center cut loin steaks at the store (I don’t really know), but I simply cut a ¾” steak off a loin that we had in our cooler.
This is one of those freeform recipes in that it really doesn’t matter what herbs you use in the marinade. At the restaurant, we use whatever we happen to have on hand. Whatever mix we make, it is generally half parsley. We use assertive herbs such as rosemary and sage sparingly. There can never be enough garlic. We avoid licorice tasting herbs such as tarragon and chervil. I don’t think cilantro has any place in this recipe; you may disagree.
The mix I made at the demonstration consisted of parsley, thyme, sage, rosemary, basil, and chives.
1 or more pork steaks 1 c assorted minced fresh herbs per tenderloin black pepper garlic, minced, one head per tenderloin extra virgin olive oil salt
Mince the herbs and garlic. Add them along with black pepper and enough olive oil to form a fluid paste to a seal top plastic bag. Place the pork steaks in the bag and massage the herb paste all around them. Place in the refrigerator overnight or longer.
Heat a sauté pan on high heat and film with oil. Cook the pork steak on one side until you can see that the bottom side has cooked. Flip and cook until done. Total cooking time is about 6-7 minutes for a ¾” thick steak. |
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