ROMANCE IN THE KITCHEN

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21186, 5 November 1938, Page 11

ROMANCE IN THE KITCHEN

USE HERBS IN YOUR DISHES Herbs give new taste to stock-pot, casserole, and salad. They bring, too, romance to the kitchen, for herb growing and preserving has inspired writers through the centuries. They are linked up with all that is most fascinating in country lore. Every garden should have its bed of herbs. Marjoram grows splendidly in restricted places, and it is good to sprinkle on salad, mashed potatoes, tomato soup or egg sandwich. Herb vinegars bring the full flavour of a summer garden into winter salads and sauces. Best herbs to use are mint, rosemary, thyme, sage, fennel, and marjoram. Heat to just below boiling-point two pints of white vinegar, put in an earthem jar and plunge into it a handful of one kind of herb. Cover and stand aside for a week. Strain and bottle securely. Mint sauce made with mint vinegar tastes fresh, even if the mint used in the making is dried. Thyme should be used sparingly in cooking, for it is very pungent. It is best with jugged hare or stewed rabbit. Put a sprig or two of thyme in a tin of golden syrup and eat it with bread and butter. The taste will remind yon of honey. Sage is excellent for weak digestions. That’s why we use it to stuff rich foods such as duck and pork. It is good, too, for the nervous; the overheated and the sleepless. Pour two pints of boiling water on to loz. of fresh, or 2oz. of dried, sage leaves with a few thin shreds of lemon peel and ioz. of sugar. Stand on the fire for half an hour. Strain. Taken hot or cold, this is a refreshing and calming and cooling drink. And who now knows the delight of cheese “marbled with sage,” as the poet Gray calls it? Sage leaves can be • added to the curd as the cheese is in the making, but more practical is the potting of a dry heel of any cheese in this manner. Scrape off every scrap of cheese from the rind. To each tablespoonful allow one large pinch of fresh sage leaves, finely-chopped, loz. of butter, and one teaspoonful of wine or white vinegar, Mix in the wine or vinegar and then the sage leaves. Continue pounding till thoroughly mixed. Put in a pot and then cover with clarified butter. “Rosemary chicken” is delicious. Stick sprigs of rosemary beneath the skin of the fowl and stuff it with a mixture wherein loz. of shredded rosemary goes to 2oz. of breadcrumbs, ioz. of chopped chives, and all bound together with egg yolk. A heaped teaspoonful of fresh rosemary leaves infused for ten minutes in boiling water will often cure a sick headache. The best method to preserve herbs is to pick them upon a sunny day after the dew has dried, and to lay them on muslin-covered baking trays. Put in a cool oven till the leaves crumble between the fingers. This may take anything from 12 to 36 hours, according to the freshness of their leaves.