HOW ARE FRESH HERBS DIFFERENT FROM DRIED ONES, AND HOW CAN THEY BEST BE DRIED?
Fresh herbs can be used wherever dry herbs are called for in a recipe, and in most cases the flavour is vastly superior. Drying any plant removes a lot of its vitality, oils and vitamins; but if you wish to use chives in mid-winter, you must either dry or freeze the fresh herbs to maintain a continuous supply.
Very high quality dried herbs are now packaged in Australia. One firm is Somerset Cottage, the family business of Rosemary Hemphill, the author of Spice and Savour and Fragrance and Flavour. In general, when dried herbs are called for in a recipe and you wish to substitute fresh herbs, use 3 times the quantity listed.
You can dry your own herbs in many different ways. The best and easiest way for the home gardener is to lay out the fresh-cut leaves or flowers on screens made by stretching those left-over ends of nylon net or terylene curtaining (or even clean hessian) over one or two old picture-frames. Tack the material around the outer edge, and put the frames where air can circulate under as well as over the drying herbs. A dry shelf in the laundry (if it’s not too sunny), or in a storeroom, or even on top of that old cupboard in the garage (not where your car exhaust fumes are going to hit the tray), are all good places to dry the herbs. Never dry them in the sun; you will lose almost all their goodness.
You can also dry herbs tied in small bunches hung head downwards from tacks along the edge of a shelf, or from brackets, or underneath overhead cupboards in your kitchen. I often have bunches of lavender or the scented geraniums drying like this hung from the black iron brackets of my herb shelf in the kitchen. This way you can get some of the perfume while they are drying. Never hang them in a spot where steam or condensation will get to them.
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