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A
general purpose bouquet garni would consist of bay leaf, thyme,
parsley stalks and peppercorns and you'd normally wrap those in
a leek skin or a herb skin or celery. You then tie them off and
add it to a stew, sauce or stock to give it a wonderful herby flavour.
Towards the end of the cooking process, you remove the garni and
stir in the sauce. You can use muslin, or you can use different
types of herbs, depending on the meat of fish you're cooking.
If you're using pork for instance, you can add sage - with lamb,
oregano , or with chicken you can use tarragon stalks or lemon thyme.
Let no one tell you what a bouquet garni is, it's what you want
it do be, although you should always use bay leaf, thyme, peppercorns
and parsley, plus whatever else you want.
Flavoured oils
In it's simplest form, you can use oregano and add it to extra virgin
olive oil with say a chilli and a couple of smashed cloves of garlic,
and leave that to infuse for a couple of weeks, to give you a fabulous
flavour.
Another good way of using herbs in an infusing sense is with stock
syrups and sweet dishes. For instance, in cooking rice pudding,
we should all be using bay leaves which gives us that wonderful
flavour. Also when using stock syrups, that you are going to pour
over sliced mangos or strawberries, you can use lavender.
Want
to find out about other herbs? Click here
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