FoodMayhem.com

Olivia asked:

"I brought back fresh rosemary from my uncle's yard in Arizona. I will give you a bag of it. Can you suggest a recipe using rosemary?"

Rosemary is an earthy herb; it has a strong aroma that is reminiscent of the forest (think almost like pine). It can easily overwhelm other flavors, therefore, it traditionally goes with very flavorful ingredients. The most common is probably lamb.

Lamb is one of the most strongly flavored meats, so it can easily stand up to rosemary. Because lamb is fatty, rosemary is often combined with with lemon juice to dress the meat--the acidity helps cut the fat. Don't forget to use plenty of salt and pepper. Here is one recipe that is for Halibut (a strongly flavored fish), but you could easily substitute lamb, pork, or chicken in place of the fish.

The reason you'll often see rosemary with chicken is interestingly the exact opposite of lamb. Chicken has no real flavor of its own, so it can take on the flavor of whatever you season it with; that's one reason why chicken is in so many dishes. Rosemary and garlic add all the flavor chicken needs.

Because of rosemary's foresty / woody flavor, it's usually considered a fall or winter seasoning. Therefore, there are tons of stews that use rosemary as a base flavor. Here's a carrot and lentil stew.

And, a third recommendation for, perhaps, what is my favorite use of rosemary, a seasoning for foccacia! Here is one recipe for the savory bread and below is a picture of my most recently baked foccacia, which in fact, was covered in rosemary.


Remember to use very good, coarse salt whenever you use rosemary -- kosher at least, grey salt is even better. They go hand in hand.

Good luck!

posted by Lon at 11:57 PM 3 Comments add a comment