Health Dill ensures fresh spice

Dill provides fresh spice: For more than cucumbers and fish
(BZfE) - Dill is much more versatile than his reputation. The herb is used not only for seasoning cucumber salad and pickles, but also for marinating salmon and trout. When flavoring vinegar whole branches are used. The fine leaves and sprouts fit with lettuce, soups, light sauces, potatoes, pickled vegetables and egg dishes. The strong fine-bitter taste is best tolerated with simple herbs such as parsley, onions and garlic. Since the aroma volatilizes on heating, the herb is not boiled, but finely cut spread over the finished dish.

Dill (Anethum graveolens) has its home in Asia, but today is also common in Germany and other northern European countries. The annual plant is like the fennel to the umbelliferae. It has delicate, finely feathered leaves and can be over a meter high. All the herbs and fine dill tips are used in the kitchen. The seasoning power is highest before flowering. Then the essential oils accumulate in the upper leaf lobes and emit a very fine scent of anise, cumin, parsley and lemon. Rarely, the fruits ("dill seeds") are used, which are stricter in taste and reminiscent of caraway. Incidentally, dill was already known in ancient times as a medicinal plant. In the Middle Ages, it was not missing in any monastery garden and was recommended for loss of appetite and indigestion.

Garden herbs refine the taste of many meals. Researchers now realized that Dill and Petersillie can do much more. They contain an ingredient that protects us from cancer. (Image: Leonid Nyshko / fotolia.com)

The kitchen herb is available fresh in the spring and summer as pot or bundle goods and year round in frozen and dried form. Fresh produce should have strong green dill tips and emit an aromatic odor. As dill wilts quickly, it is used as fresh as possible. Bundware is best stored in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator and wrapped in a foil.

Well washed and finely chopped, dill can also be easily frozen. In the garden, the plant prefers a sunny, well-moist and sheltered location. Only waterlogging she does not like. It needs no special care and can be harvested from a height of 20 cm. Heike Kreutz, bzfe