From Jeff Cox

Summer’s last hurrah isn’t upon us yet, but it’s closing in fast. Soon all those pretty fresh herbs that bring our food to life will be gone until next spring. But we don’t have to say goodbye. There are several strategies for bringing fresh herbs to our cooking right through the cold months.

First of all, a word about fresh vs. dried herbs. While dried herbs often have more potency in terms of their volatile oils, fresh herbs have many subtle and associated flavors that disappear when they are dried for storage. If you want to dry herbs for storage, it’s simple. Make a bundle and tie it together by the bottoms of the stems. Place the bundle leaves first in a paper bag, tie it off again around the mouth of the bag, and hang the bag upside down—tied ends up—in a warm, dark, dry place, like an attic or upstairs closet. After a month, grip one of the stems. If it’s brittle and dry and cracks rather than bends, the herbs are dry. Open the bag and crumble the dried leaves into the bottom of the bag. Remove the stems and discard them, and pack the dried leaves into clean, tight-lidded jars. Label and store them in a spice cabinet or cool, dark place.

Now to fresh herbs for the winter. Right now, while they’re still at the markets, bring home (or harvest from your own herb garden) basil, chervil, chives, cilantro, summer savory, dillweed, mint, oregano, marjoram, tarragon, and even Provencal herbs like thyme, rosemary, and sage. Get out your blender and remove the hard stems from the herbs, then whiz the leaves into a thick slurry with just enough water to make them blend.

Turn the herb slurry into ice cube trays and freeze. When frozen, turn out the cubes and place them in plastic freezer bags, label them, then stash them in the freezer. These herbs haven’t been blanched (that is, heated to stop enzymatic action), so over a year, they’ll acquire that unpleasant “freezer taste.” However, for the first four or five months, they’ll be fine and retain all their summer-fresh flavor.

Add the cubes to soups and stews, use them to make pistou or pesto, let them thaw and drain and mix them with salad greens, and be creative, using them in all kinds of ways that call for fresh herbs. For instance, if you’re roasting a rack of lamb, make slits in the fatty covering of the meaty part of the rack, fill alternate slits with slices of garlic and pinches of rosemary that you’ve drained and pressed.

You can also infuse mild rice vinegar with fresh herbs, creating herb-flavored vinegars for salad dressings and other uses. Simply loosely pack a canning jar with the herbs, fill it with unflavored rice vinegar, put on the lid and band and tighten, and store in a cool dark place for six weeks. Then pour off the strained vinegar into its original bottle and use the herb-flavored vinegar for salad dressings and other uses.

In other words, now is the time you’ve got fresh herbs. Use ‘em or lose ‘em.
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See also Rosalind’s Cooking From The Herb Garden
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Jeff Cox is author of The Organic Cook’s Bible and The Organic Food Shopper’s Guide, and numerous other cooking, gardening, and wine books, and lives in Sonoma County, California.
Image Credit: © Brian Chase | Dreamstime.com
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