White or Blue Borage

The whole plant is edible, and the leaves and flowers taste similar to fresh cucumber. Just lightly chop it and add to salads.

Cardoon
The fronds of this fern-like Italian plant have attractive silvery foliage. It’s in the artichoke family, and the leaves are bundled together to protect them from the sun and keep them tender. You devein the plant’s ribs, much like pulling strings from a stalk of celery. “Then you smash and pulverize the ribs enough to break down the fibers,” Gerace explained. “You eggwash them, dip them in breadcrumbs and seasoning with Parmesan cheese, and pan-fry them with olive oil and garlic. They taste similar to fried artichoke hearts.”

Chervil

It looks like parsley, but the flavor is sweeter. Often referred to as the “gourmet’s parsley,” chervil tastes mildly of licorice combined with pepper imparting certain freshness to a dish. Chervil being member of the parsley family, displays curly, dark green leaves with it’s elusive anise flavor. Chervil (also known as cicily and sweet cicily) is one of the main ingredients in fine herbs (a mixture of herbs consisting of chervil, tarragon, chive, and parsley) . Chervil has an ability to enharnce the flavors a the fine herb. Suitable for use in salads, soups, casseroles, roast vegetables, chicken, white fish and egg dishes. Unlike parsley this herb loses it’s taste once boiled, so best used in the last moment to preserve flavor.

Espazote

Popular in Latin-American cooking, especially bean dishes. “You’ll recognize it when you smell it,” Gerace said. “It’s usually in black beans or pintos, or chopped and used fresh in tacos, fajitas and burritos.”

Kaffir Lime

O’kay it’s technically not an herb, but instead of using the fruit you use the leaves. Pronounced kaff-EE, this is the flavor in a majority of popular Thai dishes. “This type of lime has lots of extra scent, extra essence,” Gerace said.

Mexican Mint Marigold

An almost equal replacement for licorice-flavored French Tarragon, but Mexican Mint Marigold tolerates heat much better. “I see cooking shows on T.V. where they’re saying they’re using French Tarragon, but if you look closely you’ll see the leaves are much too big to be tarragon,” Gerace said. “It’s actually Mexican Mint Marigold.”

Nasturtium

Leaves and flowers of the nasturtium plant have a peppery, radish/horseradish bite. Add them to salads for an intriguing burst of flavor.
Serve on salads and other green vegetables to add flavour and colour. Pickled Nasturtium seeds are a good source of Vitamin C and taste a bit like capers. Soak green nasturtium seeds in salted water for two days. Drain and soak them in fresh water for another day. Drain once. Place the soaked seeds in a jar and fill with boiled vinegar. After a few days they are ready to eat. Delicious as a condiment to fish.

Salad Burnet

This is another cucumbery taste that’s also an attractive landscape item due to its sylvan foliage. Add it to soups, salads and fish dishes for an interesting flavor layer.

Sweet Lavender

This is not the Spanish Lavender commonly used to scent soaps and perfumes. Whole sprigs of French Sweet Lavender are used to flavor brown sauces, gravies and savory meats such as lamb, pork, beef and wild game. “Or put a spring in your lemonade,” Gerace suggests, “and it adds a whole other scent.”

Vietnamese Coriander

As the days becomes longer cilantro will turn to seed – a process called bolting – and become coriander. Leaves of the shade-loving Vietnamese Coriander are an exceptional replacement for cilantro. The herb has a smell very similar to common coriander, but with a clear lemon citrus note. It is closely related to water pepper, but with far less pungency.

Chefs will always, where possible, build menu items from the ground up (stocks, portions, seasoning, garnishes) and the management of time and labour factors that allow for this is the strength of any good kitchen roster. Yet, would chefs be willing to roll up their sleeves any further? Attempting to build those flavours from beneath the ground up? This article stems from BISTRO’s furrowed investigation into unearthing the distinct advantages chefs might glean from cultivating their own herbs which, we discover: can help cut costs, articulate menu engineering, craft fuller flavours, deliver on consistency and— can even bring you pleasure!

The ‘pitch’

One man’s chore is another man’s indulgence, the main difference being our attitude to the procedure and the results we gain from it (washing the car, off to the gym anyone?). So how do you pitch the prospect of growing your own herbs to a busy Head Chef (averaging 12 hours a day) for use in their commercial kitchen? Dan Hunter, Head Chef of The Royal Mail Restaurant in Dunkeld, Victoria (winner of the 2010 AHA Award for Best Restaurant: Country) says, “It’s important to factor in the enjoyment you can get from growing these plants,” and as for the costs? “Compare a bunch of herbs for $3 to a packet of 200 seeds for $3”. Okay, so now we have the attention of our Italian readers—there is a savings to be had!

Speaking of Italians, we approached Geoff Hudson from The Italian Gardener (www.theitaliangardener.com.au) who explains, “Herbs start to lose flavour and appearance immediately after they have been picked.” So what, we ask, are the advantages to growing your own? “They are always fresh and consistent. You know their origins. The ability to pick your own herbs is a great advantage. Farmer’s market produce is good and will last a week or so, but supermarket herbs can sit in a cool room for weeks. There is no wastage and the flavours are more pungent, so you use less of the produce.” Bells ringing yet?

Sowing seeds: Annuals & Perennials

Simply put, perennials are plants that last more than two years whilst annuals germinate and flower and die all within a year (or a season). This distinction might help you structure the arrangement of your pots or garden. Hudson suggests chefs begin with perennials such as sage, thyme and oregano or annuals like basil, parsley, coriander, dill, chives and chervil (all so good for taste and garnish). Dan Hunter suggests getting started with those used commonly, such as parsley (annual) or thyme, sage and rosemary (perennials). Although—if you excuse my pragmatism— why not cultivate the herbs you’re already using to define your own comparison?

We talked to Frances Jackson, the General Manager of Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens, who explains that annuals (such as basil and dill) require a lot of water and a lot of sun. For those who wish to cultivate their own quality herbs, you will need to be able to access as much sun as possible; a minimum of ¾ day (or 6-8 hours) in open sun is preferred or difficulties may arise. Hence, a rooftop terrace, Jackson says—for urban restaurants— is ideal.

Herbs to avoid

Hudson says, “They are all worth giving a go, it’s just annuals need more work as they need to be replanted each year,” whilst Hunter’s word of advice is, “Stay away from mint, as it will tend to take over a garden. Tropical herbs can be difficult if you live in the South. Frost can be difficult for things like coriander, but the worst thing you can do is to allow any herbs to go to seed.” On this, Jackson reiterates, “the challenge with all herbs is to stop the plant from flowering.” By tip-pruning, or picking leaves by hand and cutting above the node, you can avoid this. “Flowering is only a problem with annuals not for perennials,” she says, “and thyme and rosemary require good drainage so they don’t get wet feet.”

Note on irrigation: when planting, use water crystals in the potting mix. They create a good reservoir and keep your potting mix damp. Don’t allow your soil to dry out, keep moist. Some herbs wilt faster than others and may require more frequent watering, particularly during hot weather, and if grown in containers. Herbs bounce back from wilting, but try to avoid it.

Specifics to get started

In most cases, for herbs to be grown at a restaurant, pots can be accommodated more readily than the space required for a garden. For commercial use, the medium sized pot (400mm diameter) is recommended and square pots are more spatially efficient. There is no advantage to using bigger pots. “No more than four plants per pot,” says Jackson, “Plants compete for space, and any more means they won’t grow as well, but Rosemary only needs one plant per pot.”

“Perennials,” she says, “need a good potting mix and a complete fertilizer (plant food that contains all three primary nutrient elements: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) such as Osmocote®. For commercial kitchens, stay away from using ‘poo pellets’– which can be a health problem. Use a coated fertilizer pellet instead.”

When planting, seedlings are recommended over seeds but if you can’t get seedlings, cultivate your own seedlings from seeds, and transplant them into those rooftop pots you have selected for your ‘garden’. The main reason being, that not all seeds grow to seedling stage so it’s best not to gamble on your allotted commercial pot space. The flipside to this though, Hudson says, is that “Many good varieties are not available in Australia, such as the Italian heirlooms produced by Franchi.” So to really ‘roll up your sleeves’ in the cultivation of your own flavours, commit to nurturing seeds into seedlings and access the 40-odd varieties of herbs (some with over 200 years of pedigree) with the click of a button at The Italian Gardener website. Pretty good value for an average spend of $4.50. Maggy Beer is a fan, saying “Some of my favorite meals have come from produce grown from seeds from the Italian Gardener… the result is exactly what I remember seeing in markets in Tuscany.”