Kitchen Tips: Using Mediterranean Herbs

Kitchen Tips: Using Mediterranean Herbs - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. Mediterranean herbs are a wonderful way to flavor main dishes and pasta, seasonal vegetable dishes, nyocki, antipasti, a whole variety of food. We have here the three classics. A very hardy Rosemary and if you look at it, it looks almost like pine needles. This is very good for red meats. It is also very good dipped in extra virgin olive oil and you use the Rosemary as a brush for your outdoor barbecue. Brush this on ribs, on steak, on pork chops, on veal chops, even on sausage and it adds a little hint of Rosemary to it. It is very, very good. The other main classic is sage and if you look at the leaves of sage, the leaves are always elongated. They are a little frosty looking and it is a strong flavor so a little goes a long way and if you have ever had melted butter, brown butter with fried sage leave, this is the herb. That is all you have to do. You can substitute extra virgin olive oil for butter and then use this to toss with pasta, with nyocki, with potatoes, with a sauteed fillet of sole, flounder, bass, it is delicious. The most delicate of the classics is thyme, and thyme is very tiny, very, very tiny little leaves and there are all different flavors of thyme. This is a lemon thyme. There will be English thyme, French thyme. They have mint thyme, chocolate thyme. All you have to do to really determine to go to a Farmer's Market to buy some of the fresh herbs is to simply rub your hands over and smell. The essential oils in the herbs will be immediately be released like a luscious perfume. You can tell then if you like that aroma, that is how it is going to flavor your main dish. These herbs you can buy in the grocery store. You can also grow them at home. They are very hardy and they will easily last outside, even during cold weather. So this is a wonderful way to perk up a work day meal.