Product Description

A guide to cooking with more than 50 varieties of herbs and getting the best out of them. The recipes presented incorporate familiar and less-well-known herbs from Britain, mainland Europe and Asia.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #184705 in Books
• Published on: 1999-02-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 216 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The recipes in Sophie Grigson's Herbs are so enticing it is tempting to run right to the garden or market to gather fresh herbs, then into the kitchen to put them to use.

The eminent food writer and BBC cookery star has created this seriously designed book with its luscious photographs as an accompaniment to her television series, Sophie Grigson's Herbs. She takes 48 varieties of herbs, from the familiar, such as thyme and bay leaf, to the less usual, including wild garlic, lemon balm and anise hyssop, gives their latin name and their background, season, and how to use them, then follows up with a tempting recipe.

In this book, Sophie Grigson attempts to right the wrongs done to herbs in recent times, when dried herbs took precedence over fresh, by detailing not only where to buy herb plants, but how to care for them and, most importantly, how to make the most of them in the kitchen. Chapters are organised according to herb families and they include recipes for everything from desserts such as Almond and Lemon Syrup Cake with Violets or Heartsease, and Rose Petal Sorbet to main dishes such as Red Curry with Kaffir Lime Leaves and Tomato, and Sweetcorn and Basil Soup with Pesto Croutons. Sophie Grigson's sophisticated yet very doable recipes are mouth-watering, intended to tempt the novice and the expert alike. --Susan Loomis

About the Author
Sophie Grigson has written a number of books, including three bestsellers which accompanied the Channel 4 series Taste of the Times, Eat Your Greens and Meat Course. She moved to the BBC with Herbs and her latest series, Feasts for a Fiver was broadcast in September 1999. From 1986-93, Sophie contributed a daily recipe column to London’s Evening Standard before moving on to become the Independent’s regular cookery writer. From 1995-97, she wrote a weekly cookery feature for The Sunday Times.

Excerpted from Sophie Grigson's Herbs by Sophie Grigson. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
When I think of herbs I see and smell a summer garden, with thickets of scented leaves, and long, neat rows of parsley, clumps of chives with their purple pom-poms, stands of trembling, feathery dill and fennel, the architectural stature of lovage and angelica, and that is just the beginning. In fact, it is our garden, with its brick paths and ordered chaos, so different in early morning, at midday in balmy June sunshine, in soft summer rain or thunder-loud pelting storms, or indeed in the snows of winter, when spears of tough rosemary and determined thyme pierce the white blanket here and there.

Herbs have been used since time immemorial, right around the world. Of course they have. Why waste some fragrant plant that grows, rather handily, all around and appears to have no unpleasant side effects? Wild herbs have long been man’s companions and helpmates, offering not only their flavour to liven up plain foods but often more in the form of remedies for illnesses and ailments both minor and major. Some of their supposed medicinal properties have proved fanciful but many more are now validated by modern science. Old wives’ tales are not always foolish.

Customer Reviews

sophie grigson's herbs
I love every series Sophie brings out but this one was particularly good. I rushed out and bought the book and immediately cooked the tomato, sweetcorn and basil soup with pesto croutons, page 64. It looked so colourful in the series and really looked as good when I did it myself! Sitting the a whole slice of baguette in the middle made it look fantastic and it tasted great as well. I've done several other recipes from the book since and they've all turned out really well and very easy to follow.