I'm re posting this on these groups for a wider audience:
I have been growing italian parsley in a small windo box planter and now have a large bumper crop. Does anyone know of a good method of drying the parsley and keeping it in as indefinitely as possible?
I have also thought about cleaning it, chopping it and freezing it.
JT
I'd use a dehydrator (... I do have 4 ov'em), but dried parsley isn't all that good really. It'll dry faster if you remove the larger stems. It's completely dry when it doesn't bend but breaks; at that point, crush it up and put it into a glass jar with a tight lid.
Frozen parsley is definitely the better choice. No need to chop it, just clean it; when it's frozen you just crush some in the bag, or scrape some out of your jar with a spoon, and use that.
fup set to rge.
Henriette
Drying parsley is a complete waste of time as it looses 99% of its flavour no matter how careful you are. Freezing will give you a fair amount of flavour if not the texture.
David
In our experience, dried parsley tastes almost, but not quite, as good as dried alfalfa. Frozen, on the other hand works well for us. Others may disagree and, they're free to do so.
Ross.
Thanks for the advice. I dried the parsley last night to drain any excess water from cleaning--the cold dry climate here in Japan this time of year takes care of that nicely. I just finished putting it in the freezer.
I have another question: what herbs are best frozen and what are best dried?
JT
I have dried parsley in a food dehydrator then stored it in air-tight containers for use later. But, there is nothing like having fresh parsley. It grows during the winter months outdoors, then bolts to seed the following summer and re-seeds itself.
The subtle herbs like parsley, chervil etc don't dry well. Coriander (cilantro) leaf is not what I would call subtle when fresh but it doesn't dry well either.
The stronger herbs: tarragon, basil, oregano etc dry well but often the character changes as they dry. Depending on the situation this change may be important to you or not. For some purposes the fresh form is better (even essential) for other purposes the dry form is.
For example to make pesto, dried basil just doesn't work at all. To make bernaise sauce fresh tarragon may just as good as dried, but in cases where you cannot come by one of the more pungent cultivars (or it is the wrong season) the dried form may be better as the commercial growers use such cultivars and harvest them when they are at their peak of pungency.
The reason for these differences is in the essential (volatile) oils that are lost or changed during the drying process. Different plants have different oils ( that's why they taste different - duh!) and some survive the process and others don't.
As for the effect of freezing I cannot say as much but all other things being equal you will lose less essential oils (and hence flavour) during freezing than during drying. Freezing will damage the cells and so change the texture (so does drying of course) but as herbs are often chopped/ground up this doen't matter so much unless you require the lush greeness of a fresh basil leaf on your Italian cheese salad.
David
I think you are off-base on tarragon. Dried tarragon has little flavour but freezing it works, and so does making tarragon vinegar. As for your remark about cultivars of tarragon, I understand that French tarragon doesn't set seed, so all the tarragon plants in the world are clones, and therefore the same strain.
(Russian tarragon is a different herb, inferior in for cuisinary use.)
therefore the
Perhaps our differences are a case of international variation in material available and conditions. I have found store-bought dried tarragon to be very flavoursome most of the time and I cook with it quite a bit. I suspect the stuff that wasn't good was old stock or was not stored properly, perhaps that has been your problem.
I wonder about the provenence of the "French" tarragon around the world, it would be interesting to see if the material in various countries could be traced back to some one ancestral source or if the non-seeding variety has arisen more than once in history. I don't know how you do such a study short of DNA analysis.
I have found considerable variation in the flavour of fresh tarragon. Was this because of different cultivars of French tarragon or was it due to confusion of French and Russian varieties (some nurseries don't seem to know that there are two sorts and I cannot tell the difference by sight) or variations in growing conditions and seasonal effects? I don't know. Now that I have more time and space for gardening perhaps I will conduct a grand tarragon study - win, lose or draw it would be fun (yum!).
David
Down here we have "Mexican" tarragon--strong anise smell, grows like a weed, laughs at freezes. In effect, it becomes a small sturdy bush with long creeping branches that die down if it gets too cold. zemedelec
I find tarragon preserved in vinegar is all I need for the cooking I do with it, although I also have some in the freezer. If you want help tasting the Bearnaise sauces, I'm available.
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Don't even bother planting a Russian tarragon: that is the first kind I planted 6 years ago and it's a large ugly plant that seems to have no useful purpose.
The French tarragon has survived several Colorado winters. It is a smaller plant and looks like a little version of the Russian with shorter stems and smaller leaves. It is quite fragrant and does dries well. Actually, I mainly use it dried as the mate is overwhelmed by the anise taste of it fresh, except when it's used sparingly on rotisserie chickens.
tasting the
The queue starts on the right but you will have to fight off some children who have been indulged in this respect.
David
My dried tarragon is quite unlike hay. It's rather a lot like fresh tarragon, in fact, and it, too, needs the caution "a little goes a _long_ way". Perhaps you have inferior drying methods? I bundle'em up and hang'em high, and when they're dry (about 10 days) I strip the leaf off the stems and store that in a dark cupboard in a tight glass jar.
Henriette
Russian tarragon is often available because it is grown from seed and is tasteless. I have found that nurseries don't know the difference and sell the Russian as the real thing and most of them buy the seedlings from wholesalers anyway. Even seed companies sell the seeds as a culinary herb. OTOH French tarragon can only be propagated from splitting rootstock, which is best done in spring. I would imagine that growing conditions might contribute to flavour variations as well as different cultivars. Mine is quite strong. Ahhh, the smell in the kitchen of tarragon chicken cooking........
Graham
Quarter a lemon and put two pieces in the cavity of a chicken with a bunch of fresh tarragon and truss. Poach it in chicken stock (with a bit of white wine) and remove when done and keep warm while you boil down the stock to make a sauce. Deeeeelish.
Graham
I'm guessing that would work well on the outdoor rotisserie.
Thanks
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