The serving of herbs
Herbs, with the so many variants of plants and foods, have many techniques of servings. The herbal leaves are usually make into teas or other drinks, while the roots are usually make into herbal powder, tablets, capsules, or boiled. Some herbs can be consumed directly, whether the flesh, seeds, or even flowers. Herbs can also be extracted to get their essential oils and further used as aromatherapy, oil extracts, or else. Some of the serving techniques are as below.
- You can squeeze herbs into juice or mash them into paste.
- You can use hot water to extract the active ingredients by boiling.
- You can steep herbs in cold water to make cold infusion, or in hot water to make hot infusion.
- You can process herbs to be wine, the herbal wine for sure.
- You can make herbs into syrups, tincture, liniment, salves, and ointments by adding some other herbs or ingredients.
- You can make the essential oils to be used for massage, aromatherapy, additional scents in body scrub, body lotion, body salt, shampoo, soap, hair tonic, and etc.
- You can put the herbs in cooking. Those usually used are such as garlic, parsley, cilantro, ginger, chili peppers, and so on. They add unique taste to food.
dried herb
Whatever the techniques, we would intend to get the best substances or ingredients of herbs so that the benefits are optimal. Some techniques are suitable for certain purposes, but we should be aware of not omitting the essential ingredients of herbs during the process. There are some things you should notice.
- Some herbs’ flavor can diminish during drying process. This, combined with the reason of keeping their essential substances, make it better to use the fresh forms in serving when possible. But some herbs can even taste better after dried. If you need to dry the herbs at home, use the oven.
- If you do chopping, keep the soft stems as they are less likely to be bitter after cooked and they usually have beneficial substances. Chop well so that they are distributed throughout the dish.
- Put herbs into cooking at the last minutes, so that you do not lose the substances in the process. If you only want to take the flavor, just dry stem the herbs to the dishes.
