Using herbs and spices

How to use herbs and spices properly.

When I was being graded for Chef recognition, I was surprised to get the high grading that I received. After all it was a tiny town restaurant and although I had been trained overseas, that was many years ago. The examiner, a Swiss Chef of some renown, explained that one of the reasons I had rated so high was the intimate understanding I had with the use of herbs and spices. He said watching me cook was more like observing an apothecary than a chef in action.

In part he is not too far wrong. I have long been a student of herbal lore. I know the herbs by taste as well as their medicinal properties. Don't be so quick to put me in the hippie freak category either - many herbs are not just old wives tales and placebos - they contain some pretty active pharmaceutical components. Usually these are present in very low concentrations but are concentrated when used in aromatic oils, essences and tinctures. Rosemary for example, is a strong vaginal stimulant and should never be used as an aromatic oil with women in their first trimester.

Read on - You'll also discover a little trick to make diet meals that are full flavoured. There's no need for diet cooking to be so flavourless!

Using Herbs and Spices correctly in your cooking

I have seen chefs in some quite expensive restaurants using herbs and spices incorrectly, often adding far too much to get the desired effect and imparting a sour taste to the dish.

First there is a fundamental difference between herbs and spices. We are talking about dried ingredients here, not fresh. Spices need to be fractionated to release their full aroma, while herbs need to steep.

There is a good reason for this and it boils down to simple biology. Spices are derived from seeds (like cardamom) and bark usually. Here the item is dried and the aromatic oils are bound in the desiccated cells (in bark like cinnamon) or stored in complex starches within the seeds. In these instances, you need to roast the spices to separate the volatile aromatic oils. If you roast them in a little oil, the oil will capture most of the aromatics and distribute the aroma through the whole dish.

Cardamom seeds and pods

You can observe this process in action. Smell the aroma of some ground spice straight from the packet, like cinnamon or cumin. In a pan, add a little oil and add the spice. Heat it slowly and you will notice that at a certain temperature the aroma suddenly trebles. That's the fractionating phase, where the aromatics separate. If you keep heating it more, the aroma will almost disappear. The aromatics have all vaporised.

Most spices all fractionate at around the same temperature. This means when cooking, you need to have your first ingredients ready to add to the oil (or butter etc) to drop the temperature when the spices have been fractionated.

Cooking with spices

Begin your cooking by adding a little oil to the pan or wok.
Bring up to temperature (it will flow like water rather than the more viscous oil).
Add the spices, all together, not separately.
Keep stirring until they fractionate and you get that blast of extra aroma.
Quickly add the first of you next ingredients (usually onions to caramelise or the meat).

Thai cuisine relies on both blends of spices in the form of Thai curry and herbs like Lime leaves, to give the cuisine a range of flavours in layers.

Cooking with herbs

Herbs are usually the leafy parts of plants (like lime, sage, thyme and Bay leaves). The aromatic oils are readily available because they are often a natural insect repellant (like sage, rosemary and thyme), antifreeze like garlic and thyme, or a replacement dessicate to conserve water (like rosemary and bay leaves). Therefore the aromatic oils that we want to add to our dishes, do not require fractionating.

Limes are actually a cooking herb rather than a spice. Both the leaves and fruit are rich in aromatics. Kaffir limes (shown here) have almost no juice but are rich in lime essences.

Herbs simply require steeping in the boiling liquor to release their aromatic oils. The liquor is the result of your spices, the oil they were fractionated in, the caramel fron the fried onions and meats and a liquid.

In dishes with herbs, you want a long steeping time to get the most out of your herbs. You may have noticed that many dished taste better the next day. This is because the herbs have fully steeped. Dishes like lasagna should never be served the day they are cooked. They need to be cooked today, stored in the refrigerator over night and served tomorrow. The difference in flavour is striking.

Generally this is a good method for most dishes:

1. Oil and spices
2. Onions to caramelise
3. Meat to be par braised (cooked outside, raw in centre)
4. Stock, wines, herbs (dried), coconut milk etc.
5. Vegetables and fruits that require long cooking times (swedes, carrot, etc,)
6. Vegetables that require short cooking times (cabbage, peas,fresh herbs,water chestnuts, bean sprouts) these are to be served crunchy.
7. A dusting of cornstarch to make the glaze, (if required).
8. Serve

Asian stir fry Pork with fresh seasonal vegetables prepared using the method above.

Low fat but no loss of flavour - Diet food never tasted so good!

For stews and pasta dishes, stop at step 7 and refrigerate over night. With stews, any fats will rise and solidify and these can easily be skimmed off tomorrow, making a very tasty dish with almost no fat. There is no need for low fat (diet) cooking to be tasteless!

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