When roasting rosemary skewered potatoes in the oven, the rosemary sprigs burn up, very lightly smoking the potatoes and imparting a gentle hint of rosemary flavor.  When the potatoes are ready, you remove and discard the rosemary sprigs.

Instead of using a cast iron grill pan in the oven, you could also grill these skewers, hanging the green ends off of the edge of the grill.

Ingredients:                Makes Six Skewers
1lb Heirloom Potatoes, skin on (we used Viking Purple Potatoes & All Blue Potatoes)
1/3 cup White or Champagne Vinegar
1 tbsp Fresh Rosemary, minced
Six long, thick Fresh Rosemary Sprigs
Salt
Black Pepper
Olive Oil

Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

2. Slice the potatoes into 1/3″ thick slices.  Add them and the vinegar to a pot of cold water (just enough water to cover).  Bring the water to a simmer to a simmer and cook just until tender – al dente, but not crunchy.

3. Drain the potatoes and lay them out on a plate or pan to cool.  Drizzle them with some olive oil and season with the salt, pepper, and the minced rosemary.

4. Strip the rosemary leaves off 2/3rds of the large sprigs, and thread the potato slices onto them horizontally.

5. Drizzle the potatoes with olive oil & cook in a grill pan.  The rosemary will smoke. That’s ok.

6. After the potatoes have developed grill marks on both sides, move the pan to the oven to finish cooking them.

7. Once the potatoes are tender, remove them from the oven and the burnt rosemary sprigs.  Discard the rosemary.  Serve the potatoes.

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Herb Recipes

Ingredients:
1/2 bunch Fresh Chives
1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt to taste

Directions:
1. Rinse the chives briefly under very hot running water to blanch them.

2. Put them in a blender and blend, drizzling in the olive oil, until a smooth oil forms. Blend in the salt.

Note: While blending, make sure the mixture doesn’t get hot from the blender engine (if it starts to warm up, stop the blender briefly to let it cool) as too much heat can discolor the chives.

3a. For Rustic Chive Oil – Strain the oil through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl over ice.

3b. For “Clarified” Chive Oil – Line a fine mesh strainer with several layers of cheese cloth. Put the strainer over a bowl and pour in the chive oil. Move the bowl & strainer to your fridge & let strain overnight for perfectly clear light-green oil.

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The classic bouquet garni consists of a bay leaf, some fresh thyme, a few sprigs of parsley (parsley stems are traditionally used, as the leaves can leach color into your dish) and a few peppercorns tied up in a leek leaf.  You can also use cheesecloth to wrap things up, in which case it would be called a sachet. However, it doesn’t really matter what you put in the bouquet garni…you are basically just adding flavor and aroma, so you can add whatever spices and herbs that you want to flavor your dish.

Here’s the basic process:

1. Combine 2 teaspoons black peppercorns, 1 bay leaf, ½ stalk celery, several sprigs of fresh thyme, a handful of parsley stems and 3 cloves.

2. In this case, we are wrapping our ingredients in cheesecloth to make a sachet.

3. Tie off with butcher’s twine…or, if you don’t have butcher’s twine (like us in this photo), you can improvise by making a little satchel.

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Herb oils are a beautiful, tasty, and incredibly easy condiment or garnish.  Here’s an explanation of the basic technique.

How to Make Herb Oils:

Ingredients:
1 cup olive oil
Fresh herbs (for example, a ½ bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley)
1 tbsp of freshly squeezed lemon juice
Portuguese Sea Salt to taste

Directions:

1.  Thoroughly wash the herbs.  Shake off residual water, but you don’t need to hand-dry them or run them through a salad spinner if you don’t want to. 

2.  If the variety of herbs you’re using have woody stems, remove the stems and discard them.

3.  Chop the herbs with the lemon juice in a food processor.

4.  Drizzle in the olive oil while the processor is running, then add salt to taste.

5.  Use to dress salads, garnish plates, or sauce food.

Similar Recipes:
Chile Infused Vinegar Recipe
Chile Oil Recipe

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Fresh herbs offer a tremendous amount of flavor, allowing you to enjoy an entire salad’s worth of flavor in a tiny, brightly colored pile of herbs on your plate. 

The below recipe is simply a (very good) example.  Try blending your own combinations of herbs or making fresh herb salads using micro herbs to bring even more intense flavor to your meals.

Ingredients: (Serves 6)
½ cup Fresh Lemon Thyme
2 cups Celery Leaves
1 cup Fresh Chervil
3 tbsp Lemon Juice (we recommend Meyer Lemons)
1 tbsp Olive Oil
Portuguese Sea Salt to taste

1. Remove the celery, chervil and lemon thyme leaves from their stalks.

2. Toss them together in a bowl.

3. Dress the salad with olive oil, lemon juice, and sea salt to taste.

4. Serve.

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Raw oysters dressed with this mignonette are briny and bright with a strong herbal note, especially from the celery-esque flavor of lovage.  They make your mouth very happy indeed.

Drink Pairing: White Burgundy Wine

Ingredients: Makes Enough for 1 Dozen Oysters 
1 tbsp Shallot, very finely minced
2 tbsp Champagne Vinegar
2 tbsp Fresh Lovage Leaves, thinly sliced (chiffonade)
1 tsp Fresh Chives, sliced
1 tsp Fresh Italian Parsley, minced
Salt & Pepper to Taste

Plus: Fresh Oysters of your choice (it’s incredible on kusshi oysters)

Directions:
1. Stir all the ingredients together in a small bowl.

2. Spoon over fresh, just-shucked oysters on the half shell.

3. Serve.

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This fresh tasting, herby & slightly hot sauce is delicious on steaks, many other cuts of meat, and seafood.  If you want, you can supplement or replace the lime juice with white wine vinegar for a different flavor.  The jalepenos can also be replaced with dried chilies that have been reconstituted.

Ingredients:
2 cloves of garlic
½ bunch of fresh thyme
1 bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley
½ bunch of fresh mint
½ bunch of fresh oregano
½ bunch of fresh chervil
2 large or 4 small jalapenos
Juice of 1 lime
1 cup olive oil

Directions:

1. Wash all the herbs and shake off the excess water, but don’t worry about getting them perfectly dry.

2. Remove the thyme and oregano leaves from their stalks and discard the stalks. You do not have to do this to the other herbs as long as their stalks are tender rather than woody.

3. Throw all the herbs in a food processor (you may have to pulse some of the bunches down before adding more).

4. Remove the seeds and inner ribs from the jalapeno. Rough chop it.

5. Add the jalapeno and lime to the herb mixture, run the food processor while slowly drizzling in the olive oil.

6. Though the chimichurri can be used immediately, it will get better if you let it rest in the fridge for a few hours before serving.

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Ingredients:                Makes approx. 20 servings
1/2 cup Water
1 cup Sugar
1 bunch Fresh Herbs (we used Fresh Mint), thicker stems trimmed

Directions:

1. Make a Simple Syrup with the water and sugar. Remove it from the heat and chill it completely.

2. Blanch the herb leaves in boiling water for about 30 seconds.

3. Immediately transfer the leaves to an ice water bath to shock them.  Once they have cooled completely, remove them from the water.  Squeeze out any excess water.

4. Puree the blanched leaves together with the simple syrup.  Strain through a fine mesh strainer.

5. Store the syrup in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it.

Mint syrup is particularly tasty with ice cream.

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Salsa verde is a dark green herb sauce, often made with boquerones, which add a fishy tang. In this recipe we’ve left the boquerones out to create a vegetarian salsa verde (check out our Japan-inspired tacos recipe for a version with the fish).

You can use a variety of different herbs to make salsa verde, the below is just one version.

Ingredients:
1 bunch Parsley
10 sprigs Fresh Thyme
4 fresh Sage leaves
2 tbsp Fresh Herb of your choice (Mint, Lemon Thyme, etc -  any accent flavor that suits your meat or fish)
1 large clove of Garlic
Olive Oil

Directions:
1. Wash the herbs, and add them to your blender.

2. Peel and lightly sweat the garlic clove or sauté until slightly browned.

3. Add the garlic clove to the herbs along with just enough olive oil to give the blender enough liquid to work with.

4. Blend until smooth.

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Whether you spell it tzatziki, tsatsiki, tzadziki or tatziki, there’s no denying this sauce is delicious.  Crisp, refreshing, creamy, herby and slightly sour, it’s great on salads, sandwiches, as a dipping sauce or used to balance rich meats.

Ingredients:
3 cups of Napa Cabbage, shredded
2 tbsp Fresh Dill, rough chopped
2 tbsp Fresh Parsley, rough chopped
3 Garlic Cloves, minced
1 ¼ cups Plain Full-Fat Yogurt
Juice of one Lime
Salt and fresly ground Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl. 

2. For optimal flavor, cover and let the sauce sit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours (though you could use it immediately).

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