‘Fresh herbs give a lift to dishes, and most are so simple to grow,’ says Dame Mary Berry, 91. But which hold a special place in her kitchen? Over on Instagram, our favourite cook (and bestselling author) revealed her five favourites – including one that was very unexpected.
Alongside the culinary staples basil, thyme, parsley and chives came a fifth choice that Dame Mary praised for its ability to transform any salad: garlic chives. ‘It’s absolutely wonderful,’ she says. ‘When you chop them you can really nice slivers of it and it goes so well in as salad.’
If you don’t regularly use garlic chives, here’s what you need to know. Unlike standard onion chives (which are hollow and round), garlic chive leaves are broad, flat, and solid. In late summer, they produce pretty, star-shaped white flowers and have a much milder, sweeter garlic taste than raw garlic cloves.
As Dame Mary suggests, snip into salads, or try them in potato and fish recipes, in omelettes, savoury pancakes, pad thai or stir-fries. Add garlic chives to a dish at the end of cooking for the best flavour or use them as a garnish, sprinkling over just before serving.
So what about the other herbs that made it into Dame Mary’s top five? She called basil her ‘favourite’ and advised cooks to ‘just pinch out the top’ for use in a salad or sauce. Then, ‘It will keep on growing,’ she says.
Next up, she nominates broad-leaf thyme, an aromatic, evergreen perennial with larger, rounder leaves and a more intense flavour than common thyme. ‘It will improve any recipe – meat, fish or salad,’ says Dame Mary. Chives, she says, are ‘easy to grow’ – and finally, there’s parsley. ‘As you use it, water it,’ she advises. ‘It will come back!’
