The Skinny on Herbs

 

Article By: Lesley Porcelli   Print   Email

 

A cook's guide to the delicious, transformative powers of herbs—and how to pick the best of them. Looking for healthy, simple ways to take a dish from bland to brilliant? Do what professional chefs do: Use herbs. We explain the look and taste of a dozen popular varieties and tell you how to best use them in your cooking.

Story continues below ↓

ADVERTISEMENT

Fresh Herbs
Have you ever wondered why everything tastes so exquisite in fine restaurants? If you've talked to anyone in the food industry, you know: lots of butter. (Indeed, I even had a chef confess to me that the dastardly secret to his delicious egg white omelets was heavy cream.)

But there's another tack you can take at home: liberal use of fresh herbs. They add a sprightly complexity that can't be matched by dried, and are perhaps the single most transformative ingredient you can use to make your own cooking taste more like the work of a professional chef.

Growing your own herbs in a kitchen box takes little work other than daily watering; fresh herbs are also available year round in grocery stores, generally for under $2. So make it a policy to have at least one kind in the fridge, and see what a difference they can make in your cooking.

Click on each herb's name to learn more about the plant and recipes to use them in.

	Basil Lucky is the gardener with a thriving basil plant; these emerald-green satiny leaves emit the perfume of summer.
	Chives These oniony shoots are a boon to any busy cook. When you don't feel like getting out the cutting board to chop up an onion, snip these crunchy greens into a dish with a pair of scissors.
	Cilantro A somewhat polarizing herb, cilantro is prized in Chinese, Thai, Portuguese and Latin American cooking.
	Dill Don't let the delicate fronds fool you: Dill packs a lot of punch and tastes like a cross between celery, parsley and fresh fennel.
	Marjoram Though in the same family as oregano, velvety-leafed marjoram is more mellow, with floral notes as well as hints of sage and thyme.
	Mint Anyone who's tasted fresh mint can remember the shock of its bright, herbal pungency.
	Oregano If you have trouble telling oregano's somewhat fuzzy leaves from marjoram's, that's because they're so closely related.
	Parsley Parsley deserves a seat of honour in the pantheon of herbs for its ability to freshen almost any dish as well as to boost the flavour of any other herb paired with it.
	Rosemary Fresh rosemary looks, tastes and smells as if it's been stripped from a pine tree, along with some citrusy notes.
	Sage These fuzzy, sometimes silvery leaves are beautiful and strongly scented with the high notes of menthol and the low notes of the woods.
	Tarragon With its long, slender, pointy green leaves, tarragon has a lovely, gentle combination of licorice, basil and green-tasting qualities, plus a pleasant lemony-sour aftertaste.
	Thyme The foundation of many slow-cooked French dishes, thyme tastes deeply herbal and almost meaty, along with suggestions of clove, pepper, citrus and cedar.