Cooking with Chervil, Try it. You will Love it©

Cooking with Chervil, Try it. You will Love it©

By Arlene Wright-Correll

In our Home Farm Herbery kitchen Chervil is another herb that we'd really like to use more often.  It is thought to be mostly used in French cooking but that is not really true.

It looks like parsley and tastes like mild basil, but its flavor has a tendency to evaporate into thin air in a lot of dishes.   

Many people including cooks and gardeners do not realize that Chervil comes from the carrot family along with dill, parsley, and fennel. It does look incredibly similar to parsley, except the leaves are smaller, lacier, and paler in color. We grow Chervil here at Home Farm Herbery and we like the fact that it shares one of the same aromatic compounds as tarragon. Chervil has a very delicate anise aroma and flavor.

This comes out especially when we dry it and chop it up very fine for our customers who realize any amount of cooking just destroys the flavor of chervil. It is so tender to begin with it that we toss it into dishes at the very last second.  

Chervil is fantastic with eggs! We like to sprinkle a little over the tops of omelets right before serving or stir minced leaves into gently cooked eggs encocotte. We chop the leaves very finely and mix them into butter to use with steamed vegetables, fish, and grilled meats. The residual heat from the food amplifies the aroma of the chervil without destroying its flavor.

If you are not familiar with this great herb then give yourself a treat and order some today. Of course it would be nice if you grew it, but many people don’t because they think they have neither the time nor the space.

We have great heirloom seeds !

and we have the best dried chervil !  

Here is one of Home Farm Herbery’s favorite recipes using many of our dried ingredients.

SAUTEED SHRIMP and SCALLOPS

Ingredients:

2 tsp. of our roasted minced garlic flakes 

6 tsp. of our dried onions  

1/2 lb. fresh or frozen shrimp

1/2 lb. fresh bay scallops

½ cup of our dried chopped shallots  

1/4 c. chopped dried parsley 

3 tbsp. butter

2 1/2 tsp. dried basil leaves 

1/2 tsp. dried tarragon 

1/2 tsp. dried chervil 

1/4 tsp. dried thyme 

1/2 c. dry white wine

freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Clean the fibrous portion from the scallops; wash briefly in cold water and drain. Clean or thaw the shrimp and cut into scallop-size segments.

Sauté the scallions and shallots in butter and add the garlic and dried herbs.

Add the wine and stir. Sauce can then be reduced by half (unless you're making soup).

Add the shrimp, scallops, parsley and black pepper. Sauté for no more than 10 minutes (less if the scallops are small).

May the Creative Force be with you,

Arlene Wright-Correll

Home Farm Herbery