How To Make Herbs De Provence

The taste of purple

4 TIPS FOR GROWING LAVENDER

Lavender makes the ideal edible landscaping plant – but you have to treat it right, and it helps to know which varieties taste best. Here are some tips from Laura Ambers Pittman-Hewitt, owner of Ambergardens in Port Orchard, who grows and sells lavender plants and products at the Tacoma Farmers Market.

What are thebest lavender varieties for eating?

All lavender is edible, but not all lavender is tasty. Some have more of an astringent, camphor flavor. The best culinary varieties are in the Angustifolia or English lavender family – Royal Velvet, Mailette, Hidcote. Provence, an intermedia lavender, is also widely used.

How can you tell if the lavender in your home garden is edible?

The edible varieties usually bloom late June-July. They’re low-growing, with 1-to-11/2-inch flower stems. The flower buds are close together and have a rounded, not pointed, tip. Avoid the Spanish lavender, with the rabbit-ears bud. No lavender will poison you — it’ll just taste bad.

How do you care for lavender?

Two words – drainage and sun. Plant it farther apart in the South Sound than on the farms near Sequim, to get more sun and avoid fungus. It needs well-drained soil, not much fertilizer, maybe a bit of lime once a year. Don’t plant it in clay.

What about pruning?

You need to prune at least once a year after flowering. Leave just 1-2 inches of foliage. If the plant has gotten woody and scraggly, look to see if there’s any foliage at the base — if there is, cut right back to that. If not, prune about 25 percent, then add lots of chicken manure. You can also clone the plant by heeling a stem into the ground, then cutting it off once it has roots. Pittman-Hewitt also has lavender information on the Ambergardens website, ambergardensfarm.com .

Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568 rosemary.ponnekanti@thenewstribune.com

“Most people think lavender is just for aromatherapy,” says Stephanie Pollak, who has been gradually adding the herb to items at Tacoma’s Corina Bakery for a while now. “Customers are a little afraid of it. They don’t realize that people have been using it in cooking for thousands of years.”

They also don’t realize how delicious it can be, says Pollak, who just convinced a lavender-phobic groom to buy her lavender-honey cake for his entire wedding, just by tasting it.

Herbes de Provence Recipe

What is Herbes de Provence?

As the name suggests, herbes de provence in from France. In French, it means herbs of Provence and is therefore sometimes called Provence herbs or Provencal herbs on some menus. It is basically a mixture of dried herbs, although some people do recommend using fresh herbs as part of the ingredients because “fresher is always best”. While you may agree with this statement, it is far easier to keep dried herb blends in the kitchen for later use.

This blend was favoured by those who lived in Provence because it was plentiful in this area. In fact it was far cheaper to get the ingredients that are needed for a herbes de provence recipe. It is used for vegetable stews, fish, and meat – just like my beef stew. Unlike some herbs, it is used to infuse the flavour of the herb blend into the food – not just an afterthought. Some people also like to use it as part of a herby pizza topping.

Having been through Coles and Woolworths supermarket shelves, I was unable to find herbes de provence for sale. However, it may be available on other supermarket shelves like IGA, Farmer Jacks, and independent greengrocers or gourmet food shops like The Herdsman. I also did a search for it in Sydney and Melbourne but it does seem that no one else is able to find it available on the shelf so if any supermarket chain or independent supermarket / gourmet food shop representative is reading this – please let us know if you stock it!

The most common commercially available one around the world is by McCormicks and Ducros, amongst others. However if you don’t have someone who can send a herbes de provence blend to you, you can easily buy it online. For example, on Amazon.com they do sell herbes de provence from a whole variety of manufacturers. Some of them even come in cute little pots and bags, and there are even little garden growing kits like this:

Yep, it’s as easy as that. But what happens if you don’t have all of the ingredients? Well that’s what happened to me as well so here are some substitutes that you can use:

I didn’t have savory, marjoram, or fennel seed in my spice rack. Instead I substituted:

Some people also like to include dried lavendar flowers in this mixed herb blend, but it is completely up to you. The traditional Herbes de Provence recipe does not include it though.

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