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Conserve a little bit of summer - herbs are now tough to put on
Thyme, sage or oregano: Delicious herbs that refine our cuisine are truly enough. Many of them also grow in the home garden. To be able to enjoy them all year long, they must be conserved. There are different possibilities for this. Experts have some very unusual tips.
Spices from the own cultivation
In the garden in summer you can often harvest many healthy herbs for seasoning. They taste best when you pluck the leaves or styles and freshly used. Most of these grow quickly after. But the harvest is only stable for a short time. "In two to three days, the leaves wither, even if they are stored cool and dry," said the author of the budget for household issues from Reutlingen, Gabriele Lehari, to the news agency dpa. In order to be able to use spices from the own cultivation also in the winter, the herbs must be regularly preserved.
Fresh spices from your own garden can be frozen for later use. (Image: Marmel / fotolia.com) Flavor-intensive herbs dry
The expert recommends picking young leaves and flowers as they are the most aromatic. Herbs are basically very durable. Be it by drying, freezing or the preparation of salt, oil or vinegar mixtures. However, not all methods work equally well. Taste-intensive culinary herbs such as rosemary or oregano, which are suitable for healthy Mediterranean cooking, can be dried well, for example. So you can bundle about several stems of it and hang in a well-ventilated place without direct sunlight for a few days. It's quicker if you dry the herbs in an open oven at 30 to 40 degrees within two hours. "The spices are ready when they are rusty and you can crumble them in your hand," says Lehari. When drying occur in addition to liquid but also essential oils that provide the taste. Dried herbs are therefore less aromatic.
Freeze or make herbal oil
Freezing is a more nutrient-sparing alternative, according to press spokesman Harald Seitz, the consumer information service. Parsley, chives, dill, basil, thyme, tarragon and lemon balm are particularly good for this. You can first crush the herbs and then freeze them, for example, in ice cube molds. Cook Nicole Meier from Maierhofen at Painten, however, advises rather to freeze the chopped herbs on a flat plate, for example a breakfast board. Because this could be avoided that nutrients and flavorings are lost by the cooking of the frozen cube. An advantage of this preservative form is that you can freeze herbs as well as other thawed foods again. Even in vinegar or oil, the aroma of their contained spices can be kept. So already enough a handful of basil, Brennesel or Scharfgabe for a liter of herbal oil or vinegar. All you have to do is pack the herbs into the liquid and leave them for two to three weeks. Then the mixture can be used in the kitchen. However, so that she does not go rancid, it should be stored cool and dark.
More unusual preservation options
Herbal gels are among the more unusual types of preservation. The basic mass of the jelly consists of fruit pulp, for example of apples. The fruits are crushed and boiled with gelling sugar. Then the herbs are added to the warm mass. As Seitz recommends, depending on your taste, rosemary, marjoram, mint, thyme, tarragon, sage or woodruff can be added. Immediately pour the jelly into glasses to keep it cool and dry for about four months. The expert recommends the basil jelly especially as a dip for minced steaks, the woodruff jelly fits in his opinion very well with game.
Healthier and cheaper than ready mixes
Of course, there are limits to the whole thing: "In all preservation processes, losses of ingredients and even chemical changes must be accepted, even with the gentlest treatment," explained Harald Seitz, according to the dpa. However, the contribution of herbs to meet nutritional needs is comparatively low anyway, because normally only small amounts are added to the diet. Thanks to the lack of additives even conserved herbs from their own garden are still mostly healthier and cheaper than ready mixes. (Ad)