Add a little rose, lavender or lemon verbena to your dishes – and give your nose a treat as well as your tastebuds
I like dishes where the boundaries between flavour and aroma are blurred, where the scent starts working on you before you've even opened your mouth. Technically, of course, they're always blurred: scent plays a vital role in the sensation of taste. But highly fragrant ingredients – particularly plants whose essential oils are released by bruising and/or cooking – play even more intensely with our senses.
Intoxicating aromas stimulate the limbic system in our brains, the seat of emotion, which is perhaps why fragrant food can be so evocative and seductive. It can be a turn-off, of course, if it's overdone – I've never quite been able to face the perfumed pungency of Parma violets or the cruder examples of Turkish delight – but get the degree of fragrance just right and you can create very beautiful food indeed.
One way to ensure that perfumed food is exquisite and tempting, not overblown and overwhelming, is to use natural flavours. It's easy to buy synthetic, or at least processed and preserved, fragrances to add to food – commercial rose and orange flower waters, say, or dried lavender; instead, try cooking with fresh garden ingredients. It's a different experience, at once more authentic and more subtle. A homemade rose petal jelly will never match the intense rosiness of bottled rosewater, but would you want it to? Your preserve will be delicate, dreamy, delightful, and more true to the experience of sniffing the flower than if you use a concentrated extract.
Roses are pretty easy to find, being such a popular domestic flower. What's important is the fragrance of the blooms: if their heady scent doesn't bowl you over, you'll struggle to get much out of them in the kitchen. But there are countless varieties of fragrant rose, everything from garden favourites Rosa gallica and R. damascena to R. rugosa. Heat and liquid are essential to liberate their perfume. When gently cooked, the petals collapse and release their fragrance. All you have to do then is discard the spent flowers and use the lovely liquor.
Lavender is another accessible fragrant flavour, and a much under-used herb. It has plenty in common with rosemary and even sage, but it has a sweeter floral quality than either. To get the best results, use one of the common Lavandula angustifolia varieties, because they have the warmest, gentlest taste; and use both flowers and leaves.
Lemon verbena is one of my favourite herbs. I often use it to give a citrussy-floral perfume to everything from lemonades to sorbets, jellies and marinades. This is a herb you've got to grow yourself, but it's a forgiving and tenacious perennial. Once established in a reasonably sheltered, sunny place, it will send forth a flush of fragrant leaves every summer and eventually become a substantial shrub.
Look out also for distinct varieties of common herbs. The name usually indicates what zone of scentedness they'll take you to: lemon thyme, apple mint, pineapple sage… All live up to their billing and can be used to ring the changes from the common or garden varieties. Try also scented geraniums, which you can buy in a range of luscious lemon- and rose-fragranced varieties. Putting a few leaves on the base of a cake tin for a simple Victoria sponge is one neat trick. Or add to a batch of raspberry jam. (Don't actually eat the leaves, though, because they are bitter.)
Once you've seen how chopping, crushing and/or heating liberates the volatile oils from these plants, you'll start to wonder how they might work in ice-cream, custard or chocolate truffles: all are worth a go. Try a lemon verbena mojito, "muddling" (ie, slightly bashing) the leaves with sugar in the glass. And add lavender to your favourite shortbread recipe, or try it in the sweet pastry for an apple or lemon tart. Or make your own simple rose cordial (see today's jelly recipe) and add to cocktails or fruit salads.
These sensuous scents give you summer on a plate, whether or not the sun shines.
*Loin of lamb stuffed with lavender*
This delicious roast is based on a recipe in the River Cottage Herbs Handbook. Serves four.
*2 tbsp fresh lavender leaves, finely chopped *
*1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped*
*Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper*
*A squeeze of lemon juice*
*About 2 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil*
*500-600g piece lamb loin, bone out*
*White wine or stock, to deglaze*
Heat the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. Combine the lavender and garlic in a small bowl. Add some salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon and just enough oil to bind it all together.
Lay the meat skin side down on a board. Smear the lavender mixture all over the inside surface, working it into all the crevices. Fold the meat over on itself and tie securely with string. Smear any escaping oil over the outside and season well all over.
Place the meat in a roasting dish with the "open" edge uppermost, to keep the flavouring mix inside. Roast for 15 minutes, then lower to 170C/325F/gas mark 3 and roast for another 15 minutes for just-pink lamb. Leave to rest in a warm place for 15 minutes before carving.
Meanwhile, deglaze the pan with a little wine or stock, or just a splash of water, to create a few spoonfuls of flavoursome gravy. Serve the lamb in thick slices with new potatoes and some fresh peas or beans.
*Lemon verbena drizzle cake*
This introduces a whole new level of sophistication to the classic teatime lemon drizzle. Serves 10.
*175g unsalted butter, softened*
*175g caster sugar*
*2 tsp lemon verbena leaves, very finely chopped*
*3 medium eggs*
*175g self-raising flour*
*A pinch of salt*
*A splash of milk*
For the drizzle
*Juice of 1 lemon*
*100g caster sugar*
*1 tbsp lemon verbena leaves, roughly chopped*
Heat the oven to 170C/335F/gas mark 3. Grease a large, one litre-capacity loaf tin and line with parchment.
Put the butter, sugar and lemon verbena in a bowl, and beat with an electric beater until very pale and fluffy – at least five minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a spoonful of flour with each. Sift in the remaining flour and salt, and fold in. Add a little milk, if need be, to get a dropping consistency. Spoon into the tin and bake for 45-50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
Meanwhile, for the drizzle, make up the lemon juice to 100ml with water and put in a pan with the sugar and lemon verbena. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar, simmer for a minute, then set aside.
When the cake comes out of the oven, use a skewer to make holes all over it. Strain the syrup to remove the leaves, then spoon it slowly over the cake, so it all soaks in. Leave to cool in the tin before serving.
*Rose petal jelly*
Spoon this delicate preserve on to freshly baked scones. Use any very fragrant roses, making sure they have not been sprayed or treated. For a pink jelly, you'll need deep red petals; other colours produce jellies from pale gold to blushing peach. (You can make a cordial instead by combining the rose-infused liquid and lemon juice with 350g sugar, bringing to boiling point, then bottling.) Makes enough to fill three to four medium jars.
*6-8 large, fragrant rose blooms*
*Juice of 1 lemon*
*500g jam sugar with pectin*
Pick the petals from the roses and put them in a measuring jug: you should end up with about 500ml of loosely packed petals. Put them in a saucepan with 500ml water, bring to a simmer, cook gently for five minutes, leave to cool, then strain into a clean pan, pressing the petals with the back of a spoon to extract maximum fragrance.
Prepare some jam jars by washing them in hot, soapy water, rinsing, then standing them upside down in a very low oven. Meanwhile, put a saucer in the fridge to chill.
Add the lemon juice and sugar to the rose-scented liquid. Heat slowly, stirring to dissolve the sugar, then bring to a rolling boil, cook for four minutes, turn off the heat and test for setting point.
Spoon a little jelly on to the cold saucer and return to the fridge for a minute. Push it with your finger: if it has formed a skin that wrinkles, the jelly is ready; if not, boil for another minute and test again. If you're unsure about the set, err on the side of caution. It's much better to end up with a soft, tender jelly than a tough, rubbery one.
Pour the hot jelly into the hot jars and seal. Use within a year, and refrigerate once opened.
• Go to rivercottage.net for the latest news from River Cottage HQ. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
I like dishes where the boundaries between flavour and aroma are blurred, where the scent starts working on you before you've even opened your mouth. Technically, of course, they're always blurred: scent plays a vital role in the sensation of taste. But highly fragrant ingredients – particularly plants whose essential oils are released by bruising and/or cooking – play even more intensely with our senses.
Intoxicating aromas stimulate the limbic system in our brains, the seat of emotion, which is perhaps why fragrant food can be so evocative and seductive. It can be a turn-off, of course, if it's overdone – I've never quite been able to face the perfumed pungency of Parma violets or the cruder examples of Turkish delight – but get the degree of fragrance just right and you can create very beautiful food indeed.
One way to ensure that perfumed food is exquisite and tempting, not overblown and overwhelming, is to use natural flavours. It's easy to buy synthetic, or at least processed and preserved, fragrances to add to food – commercial rose and orange flower waters, say, or dried lavender; instead, try cooking with fresh garden ingredients. It's a different experience, at once more authentic and more subtle. A homemade rose petal jelly will never match the intense rosiness of bottled rosewater, but would you want it to? Your preserve will be delicate, dreamy, delightful, and more true to the experience of sniffing the flower than if you use a concentrated extract.
Roses are pretty easy to find, being such a popular domestic flower. What's important is the fragrance of the blooms: if their heady scent doesn't bowl you over, you'll struggle to get much out of them in the kitchen. But there are countless varieties of fragrant rose, everything from garden favourites Rosa gallica and R. damascena to R. rugosa. Heat and liquid are essential to liberate their perfume. When gently cooked, the petals collapse and release their fragrance. All you have to do then is discard the spent flowers and use the lovely liquor.
Lavender is another accessible fragrant flavour, and a much under-used herb. It has plenty in common with rosemary and even sage, but it has a sweeter floral quality than either. To get the best results, use one of the common Lavandula angustifolia varieties, because they have the warmest, gentlest taste; and use both flowers and leaves.
Lemon verbena is one of my favourite herbs. I often use it to give a citrussy-floral perfume to everything from lemonades to sorbets, jellies and marinades. This is a herb you've got to grow yourself, but it's a forgiving and tenacious perennial. Once established in a reasonably sheltered, sunny place, it will send forth a flush of fragrant leaves every summer and eventually become a substantial shrub.
Look out also for distinct varieties of common herbs. The name usually indicates what zone of scentedness they'll take you to: lemon thyme, apple mint, pineapple sage… All live up to their billing and can be used to ring the changes from the common or garden varieties. Try also scented geraniums, which you can buy in a range of luscious lemon- and rose-fragranced varieties. Putting a few leaves on the base of a cake tin for a simple Victoria sponge is one neat trick. Or add to a batch of raspberry jam. (Don't actually eat the leaves, though, because they are bitter.)
Once you've seen how chopping, crushing and/or heating liberates the volatile oils from these plants, you'll start to wonder how they might work in ice-cream, custard or chocolate truffles: all are worth a go. Try a lemon verbena mojito, "muddling" (ie, slightly bashing) the leaves with sugar in the glass. And add lavender to your favourite shortbread recipe, or try it in the sweet pastry for an apple or lemon tart. Or make your own simple rose cordial (see today's jelly recipe) and add to cocktails or fruit salads.
These sensuous scents give you summer on a plate, whether or not the sun shines.
*Loin of lamb stuffed with lavender*
This delicious roast is based on a recipe in the River Cottage Herbs Handbook. Serves four.
*2 tbsp fresh lavender leaves, finely chopped *
*1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped*
*Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper*
*A squeeze of lemon juice*
*About 2 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil*
*500-600g piece lamb loin, bone out*
*White wine or stock, to deglaze*
Heat the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. Combine the lavender and garlic in a small bowl. Add some salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon and just enough oil to bind it all together.
Lay the meat skin side down on a board. Smear the lavender mixture all over the inside surface, working it into all the crevices. Fold the meat over on itself and tie securely with string. Smear any escaping oil over the outside and season well all over.
Place the meat in a roasting dish with the "open" edge uppermost, to keep the flavouring mix inside. Roast for 15 minutes, then lower to 170C/325F/gas mark 3 and roast for another 15 minutes for just-pink lamb. Leave to rest in a warm place for 15 minutes before carving.
Meanwhile, deglaze the pan with a little wine or stock, or just a splash of water, to create a few spoonfuls of flavoursome gravy. Serve the lamb in thick slices with new potatoes and some fresh peas or beans.
*Lemon verbena drizzle cake*
This introduces a whole new level of sophistication to the classic teatime lemon drizzle. Serves 10.
*175g unsalted butter, softened*
*175g caster sugar*
*2 tsp lemon verbena leaves, very finely chopped*
*3 medium eggs*
*175g self-raising flour*
*A pinch of salt*
*A splash of milk*
For the drizzle
*Juice of 1 lemon*
*100g caster sugar*
*1 tbsp lemon verbena leaves, roughly chopped*
Heat the oven to 170C/335F/gas mark 3. Grease a large, one litre-capacity loaf tin and line with parchment.
Put the butter, sugar and lemon verbena in a bowl, and beat with an electric beater until very pale and fluffy – at least five minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a spoonful of flour with each. Sift in the remaining flour and salt, and fold in. Add a little milk, if need be, to get a dropping consistency. Spoon into the tin and bake for 45-50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
Meanwhile, for the drizzle, make up the lemon juice to 100ml with water and put in a pan with the sugar and lemon verbena. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar, simmer for a minute, then set aside.
When the cake comes out of the oven, use a skewer to make holes all over it. Strain the syrup to remove the leaves, then spoon it slowly over the cake, so it all soaks in. Leave to cool in the tin before serving.
*Rose petal jelly*
Spoon this delicate preserve on to freshly baked scones. Use any very fragrant roses, making sure they have not been sprayed or treated. For a pink jelly, you'll need deep red petals; other colours produce jellies from pale gold to blushing peach. (You can make a cordial instead by combining the rose-infused liquid and lemon juice with 350g sugar, bringing to boiling point, then bottling.) Makes enough to fill three to four medium jars.
*6-8 large, fragrant rose blooms*
*Juice of 1 lemon*
*500g jam sugar with pectin*
Pick the petals from the roses and put them in a measuring jug: you should end up with about 500ml of loosely packed petals. Put them in a saucepan with 500ml water, bring to a simmer, cook gently for five minutes, leave to cool, then strain into a clean pan, pressing the petals with the back of a spoon to extract maximum fragrance.
Prepare some jam jars by washing them in hot, soapy water, rinsing, then standing them upside down in a very low oven. Meanwhile, put a saucer in the fridge to chill.
Add the lemon juice and sugar to the rose-scented liquid. Heat slowly, stirring to dissolve the sugar, then bring to a rolling boil, cook for four minutes, turn off the heat and test for setting point.
Spoon a little jelly on to the cold saucer and return to the fridge for a minute. Push it with your finger: if it has formed a skin that wrinkles, the jelly is ready; if not, boil for another minute and test again. If you're unsure about the set, err on the side of caution. It's much better to end up with a soft, tender jelly than a tough, rubbery one.
Pour the hot jelly into the hot jars and seal. Use within a year, and refrigerate once opened.
• Go to rivercottage.net for the latest news from River Cottage HQ. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.