Drying Herbs: Oregano

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Liz

I cut my oregano for drying today. I’ve always imagined myself cooking in a large kitchen with bunches of home grown dried herbs and garlic hanging from the ceiling.  Sadly this has yet to eventuate, I seem to have inhabited houses where the kitchen is one of the smallest rooms, a punctuation mark between the bedrooms and living room, or in one case between the living area and bathroom.  I do still harbour fantasies that one day this dream kitchen will be mine, and instead of storing my herbs in jars in the cupboard they will hang gloriously from the ceiling.  In the meantime I’ll settle for home grown herbs in old Moccona coffee jars nestling up against the other ingloriously stored spices that inhabit my shelves.

My oregano plant is growing in semi-shade (not ideal as it tends to prefer lots of sun) which has put it a good two weeks behind that of a friends who lives in an adjoining suburb.  Sun makes such a difference, to flavour as well as speed of ripening.  Growing in partial shade means my oregano isn’t as strong as if it was grown in full sun but I am used to it and have adapted quantities when cooking to suit my plant.

In my part of Melbourne oregano is harvest-able year round but I find the best flavour is when they are about to flower in summer, a time when my plant is drastically in need of a trim, hence a readily available source of stalks to dry.  I also find I prefer the flavour of dried oregano over fresh in many of dishes I use oregano in.

Drying oregano is as simple as cutting stems from the plant, making a bunch and hanging it in a warm (but not moist) place with good air circulation.  Oregano is best when dried as quickly as possible – taking up to about 10 days depending on the weather.  Once dry I simply remove the leaves from the stalks and place them in an air tight jar in the pantry.  If you have my dream kitchen though feel free to hang them where ever you please, as long as its away from the steam of the stove of course.

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Tarka Dhal

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Liz

A couple of months ago someone ran into the back of my car (or to be more accurate their car did –  if it had just been a person the damage would have been significantly less).  Because of our holiday and Christmas and so on I put off getting it fixed until about 10 days ago.  It is due back on Monday but we are currently carless.   We live reasonably close to public transport so this hasn’t really affect our lifestyle but it has meant large shopping trips are not possible at the moment.  As a result I have been examining my cupboards and have found a veritable food mountain in there waiting to be cooked.  The number of lentils in there would feed the average lentil lover (I’m envisioning Neil from the Young Ones here) for about 6 months, my family of happy lentiler and 3 not keen lentil eaters quite possibly 6 years.  Happily though L from 500m2 in Sydney asked for a lentil recipe just this week so here is Tarka Dhal.  Incidentally tonight seems to be a night of food requests, The New Goodlife has posted a couple of requested recipes too.

 

Tarka, which I think means seasoning, is basically a cooking method which sees spices and other flavourings fried and added to a nearly cooked dish to enhance its flavour.  Often they are fried in butter however here I have just used oil.  Feel free to add butter if you want to give the dish a richer flavour.

In this recipe I have combined a number of different lentil varieties  but you could use one of these or all three.  If you are using just red lentils the cooking time will be shorter and you will need to reduce the amount of water added.   

Tarka Dhal (Serves 6)

  • 100g each of Chana dhal, Toor Dhal & Red Lentils.
  • 2 litres water
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 40g ginger – finely chopped or grated
  • 4 cloves garlic – finely chopped or grated
  • 4 tbspns oil
  • 2 red chillies – split in half
  • 1/2 tsp chilli powder (or more to taste)
  • 2 large onions
  • 2 large tomatoes
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • 3/4 tsp garam masala
  • a handful (or more to taste) of coriander finely chopped (optional)

Place the lentils in a saucepan with the water, turmeric, ginger & garlic.  Bring to the boil and then simmer until cooked (about 30 – 45 minutes).  When the lentils have about 10 minutes to go heat the oil in a pan.  Add cumin seeds and then immediately add onions and fry until golden brown.  Add split chillies, chilli powder and tomatoes.  Cook for a couple of minutes on high.  When the tomatoes are collapsing add the garam masala and then pour the whole lot into the lentil mixture.  Stir and season with salt (it will need a reasonable amount).  Cook for another couple of minutes, remove from heat, stir through the coriander and serve.

To see what others are dishing up this week, tune in Thursday’s Kitchen Cupboard over at the Gardener of Eden.

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A Sense of Danger: Growing Sorrel

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Liz

I have to admit to being slightly scared of sorrel.  As a plant it looks unassuming but then I think about all that oxalic acid and I start to feel a little concerned.

The truth is that Sorrel is slightly poisonous, in fact all plants containing oxalic acid are but it’s the quantity that makes the difference.  Spinach has very little, rhubarb leaves a lot more and sorrel sits somewhere in the middle.  It has enough to make me slightly concerned but not concerned enough to stop growing it.  Having said that I do feel slightly arthritic in my joints after eating a fair bit of it.   Now this may well be psycho-somatic as although oxalic acid has been linked to gout it hasn’t been linked to arthritis (well not that I’m aware of anyway).  From my very limited research on the subject there does seem to have been a man in Spain who died after eating sorrel soup.  Whether there was a direct link to the soup, as opposed to say being hit by a bus just after lunch, is less clear as my Spanish is limited to; the ability to decipher menus and what I have picked up from watching Dora the Explorer.  I have to say I haven’t found the ability to say ‘la segunda historia’ and thus access the second story to help save the crystal kingdom hugely useful thus far.   All that aside the fact that sorrel does contain oxalic acid does make me a bit wary about feeding it to the kids (not that they are particularly partial to large volumes of green stuff anyway….).

If you have no children or didn’t develop paranoia the moment you became a parent then perhaps this is the herb for you.  It is delicious and loaded with vitamin C after all.

How I grow Sorrel:

Sorrel (Runex acetosa) is a perennial herb so it really is a matter of sowing some seed in seed trays in early Spring (in Melbourne if not pretty much anywhere), waiting for it to germinate then planting it out when the plants become big enough.  You could sow direct but the seeds are pretty small and I do find that when you only want a couple of plants it is easier to sow in a seed tray and then transplant the biggest and best later.  The plant enjoys quite heavy feeding and you need to remove any flower heads that emerge to ensure leaf development (I also suspect it could self seed rather voraciously).

Sorrel tastes sour and slightly lemony – a bit like a leafy sumac if you are familiar with that flavour.  I generally enjoy it raw and sliced really thinly in salads, and picking a leaf whenever I go past the plant.  I do believe that blanching it in water may reduce its oxalic acid content (ie the acid is thrown out with the water) but I’m not sure.

I would be interested in other’s attitude to sorrel and its potentially poisonous qualities – a delicious source of vitamin C, or the path to kidney stones – you decide…..

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Top 5 – Edible Plants for pots

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Liz

My garden has a lot of paved areas and as a result my garden has a lot of pots.  I grow a pretty wide range of things in them, I have tried most things (except pumpkins) in pots at one time or another.   Whilst most things do grow at least reasonably well I do find pots are better suited to some plants more than others.  Generally the pot grown plants do not get as big, or produce as big a yield as bed grown plants, but there are exceptions, and there are also plants where a reduced yield doesn’t really matter at all.

1. Chillies

Chillies – I love chillies and even more I love chillies grown in pots.  The plants are attractive, you get a decent yield from them and having them in pots allows you to grow a wide range of varieties in a comparatively small space.

 2. Eggplant

Eggplant – One of my earliest posts was called Eggplant – The perfect pot plant? and I do think they work fabulously.  They don’t seem to mind the constraints of the pot (provided its a reasonable size to start with – I use 40cm diameter pots for eggplant), they fruit happily and can be moved to maximise time in the sun.

3. Mint

Mint – Every book I’ve read on herbs seems to tell you that herbs are wonderful plants for pots and whilst most are fabulous there are others that I think do better in the garden.  Parsley for instance seems to better suited to the garden bed as it likes to have room to stretch into.  If you give mint room to stretch into it will take that room and more so I’ve always grown it in pots.  I have 3 large pots of common mint, one large Vietnamese mint and this small spearmint.  Mint is  a water hungry plant and growing it in pots allows you to feed and water it to its hearts content.

 4. Citrus

Citrus – I think there’s something terribly romantic about fruit trees in pots.  Olives and particularly citrus remind me of Spain and fabulous courtyard gardens in the most amazing villas.  Citrus also seems to like growing in pots.  It is easy to control the drainage, you can keep the food and water up to them and ensure they have the best position year round.   My citrus are all grafted onto dwarf rootstock which I do think helps their comfort level in a confined space.

5. Tropical plants

This could really read – anything out of its comfort zone, which for me is tropical plants.  Melbourne is just inside what in Australia is called the Warm Temperate gardening zone, we have hot dry summers and cold wettish winters.  These are not really ideal conditions for growing tropical plants and yet I like to eat them.  The best solution I’ve found is to grow them in pots – that way I am better able to control their environment.  I can allow them to follow the sun, or in ginger’s case, the shade.  I can ensure they have adequate water (often more than the other crops need) and I can keep the food up to them.  Currently I am growing cardamom, ginger, turmeric, lemongrass, and my pride and joy – my curry leaf tree – all in pots.

So what have I missed?  What does fabulously well for you in a pot?

As for last week’s cookbook related Top 5: thankyou to everyone for their feedback.  More shopping to do….. If you enjoyed the topic and want more The New Goodlife also chose it as her Top 5 theme for the week.  She has some great recommendations here.

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Harvest Monday – 16th Jan 2012

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Liz

It has been significantly cooler this week – bordering on cold even (a relative thing I know but cold for summer….).  As a result the tomatoes have seemed less happy to produce fruit.  I did harvest a few though:

The trouble is that by the time the kids have eaten their fill there’s none left for me.  These plants had really better get a move on with production otherwise I might start to get quite upset with them…..

Fortunately though summer is not just about tomatoes.  Its also about cucumbers which continue to produce one every day or two.  Most of the cucumbers are going into salads or dips – Tzatiki being a personal favourite.

This week brought the first red capsicum of the year, pictured here with some mint, sorrel, a cucumber and some cayenne chillies.  I have been really pleased with the chillies as the heat is good and they have a good number on the plant which is now in its second year.

All these ingredients went into a salsa, which was nice but frankly lacked coriander which naturally enough has bolted and is no use to anyone any more.

The best thing about this weeks harvest was beans.  More Beanette and Jade beans and a lot more Royal Burgandy.  I don’t get enough to freeze but I do get some most days (this is one days harvest) which is enough to cover our needs over summer which is lovely.  These beans, and a few others, went into a South Indian dish called Green Beans Poriyal which is beans spiced with brown mustard seeds, cumin, chilli, urid dhal, asofeotida, coconut and curry leaves.  I served it with dhal and I plan to post the dhal recipe later this week.

Even more exciting were the first Tongues of Fire beans:

Very similar to a Borlotti bean and like them you only eat the inner bean; these were lovely with some onion, garlic and chilli.

I am really pleased with how most of my herbs are doing at the moment.  The Vietnamese Mint and Thai Basil are doing particularly well.  This week they, and some spring onions, provided last minute flavouring for a noodle soup.

Lastly we had another potatotastic week as I started harvesting from the large bed.  So far I’ve only dug up a few Kipfler plants from one end and have about 2kg of potatoes to show for it.

 

I think I could have left them a bit longer, but I needed some space for lettuce, so……well that and I can be really quite impatient.

Whilst I will reserve judgement on the bed for another post when I’ve dug it all up I would say that I’m pleased with the outcome so far, but I would say I think it could have done better if I’d layered the straw and manure a bit higher.

Want to see more harvests?  Head over to Daphne’s Dandelions for fabulous harvests from around the globe.

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