These Herbs are All Wet
(Page 2 of 5)
December/January 2005
By Jim Long
Soup, chicken and shrimp all marry well with lemongrass in simple dishes made from this useful bog plant. To experience the true flavors of lemongrass, next time you visit a Thai restaurant, order the Tom Yum Goon soup.
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A related species, East Indian lemongrass (Cymbopogon nardus), is the source of citronella oil, used in candles to repel mosquitoes. This variety also is pleasant in tea and potpourri mixes.
The leaves of lemongrass, above the bulbous base, are used in a variety of ways. I make cheesecake, muffins, pound cake and cookies, using the leaves rather than the stalks.
When you make a cake or other dessert using lemongrass leaves, snip the leaf into small pieces with scissors, then blend with the recipe’s liquid.
For muffins or cake, I heat the milk the recipe calls for, add the lemongrass and process in a blender until the grass is chopped fine. This pulverizes the leaf and further extracts the flavorful oils into the warm milk. It’s easy, simple and works perfectly.
Cattails (Typha latifolia). Believe it or not, all parts of the cattail are edible and delicious, from the young shoots, which are eaten raw, to the pollen, which is added to biscuits or pancakes. Cattails are easy to grow at the edge of large ponds, or can be grown in containers of soil set into the pond. They can become invasive if allowed to run rampant, so harvesting them regularly for the kitchen can help keep them from spreading.
Pick the cattail shoots when the leaves are no higher than 2 to 3 feet above the water, and peel off the outer leaf leaving the tender, inner stalk. Wash them in water to which you’ve added a splash of vinegar. Cut in 8- to 12-inch pieces and serve with your favorite dip (I favor sour cream and chive). You’ll be amazed at the fresh, delicious flavor of cattail stalks.
Wash Before
You EatSnails slide around and fish poop in that water, so wash your plants before eating them. Here’s a safe and easy method: Rinse the freshly harvested plants in tap water, then put them into a bowl with enough water to cover the plants, and add a dash of cider vinegar. Three tablespoons of vinegar per 6 cups of water is sufficient.
Why vinegar? Medical experts on the People’s Pharmacy radio show recently reported new studies showing that a vinegar solution is as effective as chlorine solution in killing bacteria on fruit and vegetables, and much less caustic. They reported that vinegar is more effective in killing the bacteria that cause intestinal upsets than the vegetable wash solution sold in supermarkets.
After soaking five minutes in the vinegar solution, put the plants in the salad spinner under running water to rinse, then spin dry. The plants are then ready to eat or cook. |
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