ingredient

SAGE

Pronounce it: sa-age

Popular in both Italian and British cookery, sage has long, grey-green leaves with a slightly furry surface. Its aroma is pungent and it has a strong, slightly minty, musky taste. Traditionally, it's used to flavour sausages and as a stuffing for fatty meats such as pork and goose. A little goes a long way - and it's never used raw.

Availability

All year round. Buy a pot from your local greengrocer or garden centre and keep a ready supply.

Choose the best

Look for fresh leaves with good aroma and colour, with no wilting or brown patches. Common sage has a deep, earthy flavour and aroma but you can also buy pineapple sage which, as you might expect, has a sweet pineapple scent (though the flavour is more like common sage); purple sage, which has a milder flavour; and the equally mild tricolour sage, which has a variagated leaf of pink, cream and green. Dried sage is also available.

Prepare it

Pick the leaves from the stem, wash, then use whole or chop.

Store it

Fresh cut sage should be wrapped in kitchen paper, placed in a perforated bag and stored in the fridge. It will last for up to 3 days. Dried sage should be kept in an airtight container and stored in a cool, dark place. It will last from four to six months. Pots of sage will survive well on a protected, sunny window sill.

Cook it

Add to pasta sauces; use for meat or poultry stuffings; quickly fry in butter and use as a garnish for risotto or pumpkin dishes.

Alternatives

Try rosemary or thyme.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/glossary/sage

 

YUZU

Yuzu is a Japanese citrus lemon that is valued for it’s highly aromatic rind and Yuzu is one of the few citrus in the world that is able to maintain it’s tart/sourness at high cooking temperatures. Because the yuzu is considered a citron, the juice is very minimal, thus often expensive. Outside of a few Asian cuisines and particularly in Japanese cultural circles, yuzu is seldom grown or used because it’s rather rare. Used in both green and more ripe, yellow forms it’s a prized citrus in the culinary world.

Yuzu is sour, tart, very fragrant and slightly smaller than a billiard ball. The intensity and aroma of fresh yuzu is incredible. Yuzu is a citrus that isn’t eaten straight, but is used as a souring ingredient through the use of it’s juice and zest. The flavor is reminicent somewhere between a classic Eureka lemon and an oro blanco grapefruit, but still has its own unique fragrance and flavor. It is a bit more floral and sour and utterly wonderful. It smells so good the Japanese will use yuzu for perfumes and will ritualistically bath in yuzu during Toji (winter solstice).

There isn’t a lot of juice in each little ball of fruit, maybe a teaspoon per yuzu due to much of its mass being occupied by ginormous seeds and a thicker rind. However the juice is one of the very few citrus that can hold up fairly well to cooking without diminishing the flavor. The zest is packed with delicious oils that allow you to use nearly every part of the yuzu in the kitchen. Yuzu is a integral part to Japanese Ponzu sauce as well as yuzu-kosho, a spicy chili-salt laden with yuzu zest.

For the home gardener, yuzu is one of the most zone diverse citrus, being cold hardy down to 5-10º F. It is a bit stubborn to get to flower and has a few nasty thorns, but it is well worth the time & care to get these beautiful trees to fruit. They are still a bit hard to track down in the United States, but if you have a great nursery nearby, maybe they’ll be able to special order you one.

The fruit is ready earlier than most citrus, usually September or October, giving citrus heavy areas like southern California and Florida extra incentive to add a yuzu to their collections. One of the things we love most about our garden is that there is almost always something fruiting all year. Every season and month has something new to look forward to and it helps ease the grief of another favorite ending for the year.

For the home gardener, yuzu is one of the most zone diverse citrus, being cold hardy down to 5-10º F. It is a bit stubborn to get to flower and has a few nasty thorns, but it is well worth the time & care to get these beautiful trees to fruit. They are still a bit hard to track down in the United States, but if you have a great nursery nearby, maybe they’ll be able to special order you one.

The fruit is ready earlier than most citrus, usually September or October, giving citrus heavy areas like southern California and Florida extra incentive to add a yuzu to their collections. One of the things we love most about our garden is that there is almost always something fruiting all year. Every season and month has something new to look forward to and it helps ease the grief of another favorite ending for the year.

http://whiteonricecouple.com/garden/yuzu-citrus-japanese-citron-lemon/

TARAGON

Pronounce it: ta-ra-gon

A popular and versatile herb, tarragon has an intense flavour that's a unique mix of sweet aniseed and a mild vanilla. The leaves are narrow, tapering and slightly floppy, growing from a long, slender stem. It's a key herb in French cuisine (it's an essential ingredient in sauce Bernaise), and goes very well with eggs, cheese and poultry.

Choose the best

Go for fresh-looking leaves, with no discolouration or wilting. French tarragon is considered to be the best - its flavour is more subtle than the coarser Russian tarragon. Dried tarragon is also available. Or, for a ready supply, keep a pot on your windowsill, or grow in your garden or window box.

Prepare it
Wash, then use whole sprigs or strip the leaves from the stalks and use whole or chopped.

Store it
Fresh cut tarragon should be wrapped in damp kitchen paper, placed in a perforated bag and stored in the fridge. It will last for around 4-5 days. Dried tarragon should be kept in an airtight container in a cool, dark place - it should last for 4-6 months.

Cook it

Use to make sauces for fish and poultry. Add to salad dressings; use to flavour butter or white wine vinegar.

Alternatives
Try fennel.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/glossary/tarragon