In spring I usually grow a few herbs in pots and this year I am growing from seed three essential herbs that had run their course and needed replacing: mint (Mentha spicata), thyme (Thymus vulgaris), and parsley (Petroselinum crispum).
Parsley seeds germinate easily as long as the soil is warm, so it’s best to start them off indoors in a pot until they sprout. Then they can be thinned out to a couple of the more vigorous seedlings, transplanted to a 15cm (6inch) container of rich, moist compost and put outside permanently when temperatures eventually increase in May – he said with unfounded optimism. Kept in a sunny spot and watered well, especially in dry weather, the deep green leaf clusters are soon established and, picked regularly, there will be a continuous supply of fresh leaves. If the flowering stalks are removed as they appear, the plant won’t run to seed and a second season of leaves will be produced after winter dormancy. At this point the biennial should be allowed to flower freely and set seed before its life span ends, The seeds can then be collected and stored for future use or just allowed to spread naturally – a hit and miss approach which doesn’t often work in an overcrowded garden like mine but I’m hoping will be more successful in a container.
Chopped-up parsley has umpteen culinary uses in salads, soups, marinades, casseroles, stuffing, bouquet garni, tabbouleh, pesto and so on ad infinitum – such is parsley’s fundamental importance in global cuisine. But for me nothing utilises the distinctive earthy, green, peppery flavour quite like that staple accompaniment to countless fish, ham or vegetable meals: parsley sauce.
PARSLEY SAUCE – SAWS PERSLI
INGREDIENTS
20g (1oz) butter
20g (1oz) cornflour
250ml (½pint) milk
salt and black pepper
garlic clove, thinly sliced
50g (2½oz) parsley, finely chopped
METHOD
1) Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat
2) Stir in the cornflour until it forms a paste
3) Gradually add the milk, stirring continually
4) Add the garlic and season well
5) Lower the heat as the milk warms, don’t stop stirring
6) As the sauce thickens add a splash more milk if necessary, keep stirring
7) When hot and the required thickness stir in the parsley
Native to the eastern Mediterranean, parsley is one of the oldest herbs known to humans, described in a Greek herbal as far back as 2,300 years ago. It has long since spread across the world, reaching the British Isles in Roman times, and was referenced in the seminal 11th century Welsh herbal of the Physicians of Myddfai. The Latin name was adapted into both Welsh and Early English around this time.
Believe it or not, parsley has become a divisive herb ever since a few snobbish London-based chefs decided in the 1990s that the flat-leaf variety favoured in France and Italy was superior to the curly-leaf variety long prevalent in the UK. They declared that flat-leaf parsley had a stronger flavour and was easier to prepare in the kitchen while curly-leaf was good for nothing more than a garnish. The congenitally insecure and trend-chasing British media, always desperate to be seen to have their finger on the pulse, duly latched onto this tendentious opinion and henceforth delicious curly-leaf parsley was banished to the outer darkness, never to be mentioned again, and now supermarkets rarely stock anything but the flat-leaf version. It hardly needs adding that the arbiters of fashion and policers of taste were wrong: flat-leaf parsley is actually dry, stalky, coarse and unpleasantly papery on the tongue, deteriorates rapidly when picked, is virtually impossible to chop without cutting a finger and is inferior to curly-leaf parsley in every regard, from taste, texture, appearance and utility through to nutritional benefits. Yotam Ottolenghi can argue about it if he thinks he’s hard enough…
Pictures: Rocket Gardens, Propagation Place