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Freezing Herbs

Category: Misc

Author: The Savvybearcat

Date: 1/1/2007

Rating:

(2.0) by 2 users

Ingredients:

None

Instructions:

The best guide I've seen to freezing, drying, canning, and otherwise
preserving all manner of foods is _Stocking Up_ by Carol Hupping:

In it is excellent advice on freezing fresh herbs for later use.

Basically, you should blanch the herbs for a few seconds before
freezing.

The Rodale Food Center did some testing, comparing herbs blanched
before freezing and those not. Here were some of the results:

BASIL: Basil frozen raw darkened to a drab grayish-green and turned
somewhat bitter, losing much of its lovely aroma. But when it was
blanched in water before freezing, it stayed green (although darker
than when fresh) and was flavorful and aromatic. Surprisingly, steam
blanching was not as successful.

DILL: The blanched sample was far superior to the raw, frozen one: It
was more tender, brighter green, and more flavorful. Instructions for
freezing fresh herbs are to:

1. Wash if visibly dirty 2. Hold by stems with tongs and dip into
boiling water briefly, swishing around. Remove when color brightens.
3. Cool by holding under cold running water and blotting dry with
towls or let them air cool. 4. Remove stems and either leave whole or
chop 5. Lay out flat on waxed paper, roll up or fold paper if you
have a small freezer. You want to freeze the herbs so they are not
touching each other. 6. Freeze.

Can be used frozen or thawed in frige for a week.

Alternatively, you can freeze herbs into ice cubes. Remove stems and
chop, place in trays, cover with water, and freeze. You can use
pre-blanched herbs or just pour boiling water into the trays over the
herbs. These herbed cubes can be used later when you are preparing
stoups, just throw a frozen cube or two into the soup.

The book says that while frozen herbs won't taste or look quite like
fresh ones, most will come very close.

Posted by artemis@netcom.com (Michelle Dick) to the Fatfree Digest
[Volume 14 Issue 24] Jan. 24, 1995.

Individual recipes copyrighted by originator. FATFREE Recipe
collections copyrighted by Michelle Dick 1995. Formatted by Sue Smith,
SueSmith9@aol.com using MMCONV. Archived through kindness of Karen
Mintzias, km@salata.com.

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