Herb salts are something I'm into this year in a big way. They are what you think they are - combinations of dried herbs, with salt. It's a good way of preserving an abundant herb harvest, and makes for delicious flavourful additions to anything savoury you could possibly think of. I'm amassing quite a stash:
I grow a lot of herbs on my allotment because they're easy to maintain and mostly perennial. I'm a lazy gardener, which I tell myself has a deep and philosophical element to it - I'm learning from the pace of nature or something - and this may actually be the case, or it may be that I'm only lazy. So what? The art of gardening consists mainly in sitting in your garden, and very occasionally, when absolutely necessary, doing some gardening.
As for technique, it's all about drying the herbs properly. Sage, rosemary, marjoram, mint - all these grow on branches, that can be snipped off the plant and hug up somewhere dry in bunches. Patience is importance - you don't want to do anything more with them until they're completely dry. They're completely dry when the leaves have curled and crumble between your fingers to the touch. Here's what a bowl of recently crumbled marjoram looks like:
Having sprigs of herbs hanging around in windows and doorways makes me feel like a bit of a wizard. That I'm warding off evil spirits or whatever. They also smell nice. Then when they're dry you can add them to food and feel like you're a gourmet chef, even though you're not.
Once the herbs are all crumbled up, you need a pestle and mortar to mix them with the salt (use sea salt if you can, not standard and characterless and mineral-stricken table salt) and crush into a powder, that looks like this:
At this point you can easily remove any stray twigs or woody bits that you don't want.
The thing to do is make your own blends of herb salts. I've already tried a few of my own, and given them out to colleagues at work, with no complaints. I keep a jar of "mixed" herb salt handy at all times, and when I went to make my own blends, I just use the separate jars pictured above to create unique combinations. Another journey begins.
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In my garden herbs (or everything) grow slowly,and during springtime I just can't wait to preserve something. I usually pick stuff for my tea (rowan leaves, nettles, wild raspberry leaves, black currant leaves etc), but we do have abundance of spruces (I have a small forest). I tried spruce tip syrup and what else, but then I tried to make spruce salt and yes! it was perfect for us. I take soft, neon green new growth from tips of branches, dry them and grind them with sea salt. Someone said it has a hint of rosemary?
ReplyDeleteBut the main thing is, my kinds don't mind me using that salt in our food (mainly seasoning fish and pork, sometimes moose or deer, if we have any). They object on oregano and majoram, can't stand basil (but are ok with darragon, which doesn't grow in my garden, bugger), and kind of tolerate sage.
Another seasoning salt I have is made of mushrooms (yellowfeet).