Well, not 50, but it sure felt like a lot. This lesson was on chopping herbs. I worked with parsley, basil, cilantro, mint, rosemary, chives, oregano, and thyme. I really enjoyed working with fresh herbs.
Most of the herbs I finely chopped, but for the basil, I used a french
slicing technique called chiffonade. I took a few leaves of the basil, laid them in a stack, and rolled the leaves and then cut them into strips. Here’s a great video with two different techniques, if you want to learn this yourself!
The other one that was not just finely chopped was the chives, or green onions, as some might call them. I cut those in small pieces, but not finely chopped like some others.
This lesson was pretty straight forward, and really easy. Fresh herbs add more flavor in your dishes, so in my opinion, it’s worth learning these techniques! My mom used some of the parsley I chopped in the cheese mixture for homemade lasagna. The rest of the herbs have gone to the freezer for now.
It was interesting to see which herbs were easier to chop than others. For example, the oregano leaves cut quite easily, while the rosemary leaves were a little more tough. And the thyme leaves were kind of easy, but they were just so tiny!
Like the onion lesson, this one was quite aromatic too, but not exactly like the onion, since there were no tears. I actually liked the different scents from the herbs I cut. The variety of the different textures and sizes of each herb’s leaves, as well as the smells, and the different shades of green were fun to see! How about you? What are your favorite herbs to work with?
I definitely learned a new way to cut basil! I have never heard of that before!! My favorite herbs are cilantro, basil, and parsley!! I’m drying a bunch right now from our garden for this winter!!
Haha, just days before doing the basil, my mom was cutting something (I think basil, but could have been something else) for something, I forget what, but it was the same cut I learned! And she said I would likely learn this in the herb lesson – and she was right!
I love cilantro but have no idea how to chop it, lol. You’ll have to give me some pointers next time we’re hanging out. 😁