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Some general principles:

Parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, chives, basil, oregano (=marjoram), dill, mint - these cover the majority of bases for herbs in cookery. Garlic, paprika, coriander, pepper etc. aren't strictly herbs, but well worth getting the hand of.

Dried herbs and fresh often taste completely different - in particular parsley, chives and basil IMO - in all cases fresh is much stronger, cleaner and less "gritty".

Parsley gives a kind of fresh green flavour to things (crap description, I know, but better than "it tastes like parsley"), and is used a lot in French cookery. It's a milder flavour than most other herbs, and it's *hard* to use too much, so bears a lot of experimenting with.

Basil and oregano give food an "Italian" flavour - they're typically the main herbs in spag. bol. mixes. Oregano = majoram (more or less, M is a slightly milder species of O)
Basil is also used in the completely unrelated SE Asian cuisine, it gives a simultaneously spicy and cooling effect to a dish. in this context you want fresh basil stirred in at the very last minute.

Sage is a strong taste you'll know from sage and onion stuffing - useful for taking the edge of fatty stuff and is particularly traditional with pork.

Chives = onion relative - a slightly "sharper" taste than the closest relative, the green bits of spring onions.

Rosemary: Again a strong flavour, and the dried leaves are very hard, so will be quite noticeable in terms of texture. Scatter the dried stuff over the surface of a roast (particularly lamb), use fresh otherwise.

Thyme: Used a lot in French cookery - taste isn't describable in terms of anything else. Good with most meats and vegetables, a good all-rounder.

Tarragon: A very strong flavour, use sparingly - goes well with chicken and mushrooms - I'd be tempted to try it in the mushroom risotto, with a smaller amount of thyme (with which it combines well).

Dill: Useful only with fish, and in truly minute quantities - the dried stuff is unbelievably strong flavoured. No, even stronger than that. Good if used right, but experiment *before* trying on guests.

Mint: Unusual in much European cookery except as mint sauce with lamb. Use the fresh/dried stuff with pepper or chilli for a North African/Moroccan feel to a dish. The coolness of the mint and the heat make a *very* effective combination.

Excellent herbal summary :-)

I think Thai sweet basil is a bit different to western basil. Lemon-grass and kaffir lime leaves probably count as herbs, and are used in Thai cookery too.

I'd take issue with the difficulty of using too much parsley - especially some of the stronger curley-leaf varieties can easily overwhelm, well, anything really.

The only major European herb I can think of that you missed is bay (for the list, thow whole or corsely crushed leaves into meat stews for flavour, goes well with thyme).

*nod* Kaffir lime leaves really make a Thai curry IME. They're the smell I recognise from the thai food I actually ate in Thailand :)

My one piece of advice about lemon grass is to treat it like cinnamon sticks; use it whole and take it out again after cooking. It's way too fibrous to be edible. I once had some chicken and lemon grass soup which I eventually ended up sieving to get the lemon grass out, and it left something resembling coconut matting in the sieve..

On the subject of spices rather than herbs, nutmeg is often overlooked as an accompaniment to savoury dishes; it's good for adding interest to things with a slightly bitter flavour. I find savoy cabbage fried in olive oil with a bit of black pepper and some nutmeg is lovely. It also livens up spinach a touch. Worth getting whole nutmegs and a grater though, it loses its flavour when ground.

Cinnamon is also a wonderful addition to Moroccan-style dishes; sweet-spicy is another very Middle Eastern combination.

Cumin and ground coriander (which is made from the seed and tastes nothing like fresh coriander leaves at all) are the Gruesome Twosome of both Mexican and Indian cookery; use in much greater moderation in a chilli con carne but they do round out the flavour. Cumin is much stronger than coriander and should be used sparingly; a teaspoon in a chilli for three, for example. An excellent burger recipe crazyscot uses involves mince, grated onion, an egg, half a teaspoon or so of cumin and some coriander - the burgers come out very slightly curryish and are gorgeous :)

Ginger is another one that tastes radically different fresh to dried and ground. Fresh ginger is very fresh-tasting and is wonderful in many many things, especially curry, stirfry or Thai; ginger, fresh coriander and lime makes a good marinade for chicken or tuna. Dried ginger is a sweeter taste and good mainly for curries, baking, Moroccan food or mulled whatever.

Good for you. (-:

We bought my mother a book that helps her match herbs to meals. She seems very pleased with it. Send me e-mail if you'd like me to ask her what it was.

Best secret for risotto (and lots of other dishes, for that matter) is to use a *really* good stock. Buy a liquid one rather than stock cubes or powder. Get that right, and your risotto will taste great. Anything else you add just 'specialises' the flavour, so don't go mad with quantity. Fresh coriander is nice if you like the taste, but for traditional Italian you're looking at oregano and basil really. Use proper Italian rice, and cook it in the traditional way (e.g. briefly fry onions & garlic in a bit of oil, then add the uncooked rice to the hot oil and stir it around until all the grains are coated. Then keep adding stock a bit at a time whenever the mixture dries out (the stock should be simmering in a separate pan, diluted with water of course, ready for use). Stir *continuously*, don't stop, and keep going until the rice reaches the level of firmness you want).

I generally cook a basic risotto as above then add other ingredients at the end -- this is especially important for things like mushrooms that tend to go horrible if you overcook them.

Hope this helps!
(ps, should you not remember who I am, I am doseybat's other half -- I talked to you at the_alchemist's party. See here (http://findatlantis.com/) or here (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~st326/) for further dirt on me.)

Who buys stock? *boggle*

I agree that cube stocks are crap, but I'm not prepared to shell out for chiller cabinet 'fresh' stock when I can make my own for free every time I've cooked meat on the bone!
Never quite sussed how to make vegetable stock without ending up with a sort of soupy substance or something that looks like dishwater, mind.

I don't tend to buy the fresh stuff either -- too expensive. You can get liquid stock that lasts weeks after the bottle has been opened. I can't remember the brand name off hand, but it is very good. I have occasionally made my own, but the tiny kitchen near my college room isn't up to that kind of thing, really!

Ah, being in college is a good reason for taking cooking shortcuts! Not encountered the 'liquid stock in a bottle' thing though.

Oooh, I remember waking up at Mulberry Close to the smell of home-made stock cooking, used to take me right back to visiting my Gran's house :)

Personally, in a mushroom risotto, I'd probably throw in herbs more or less as the whim dictated.

I do like marjoram with lamb, though. Also a mix of coriander, cumin and cinnamon, which is good in omelettes and other egg dishes, too.

Basil and paprika go quite well together. Coriander is very useful if you feel you
've gone over thetop with chili at any point.

"more or less as the whim dictated" ... this is precisely my problem. See, with my limited palate I can barely tell what herbs are in something at all, and I certainly can't usefully distinguish them. I can just about tell if something tastes particularly herby in general, or tastes particularly boring and needed more herbs, but that really is as far as it goes. So I don't have any particular "ooh, I feel in the mood to put in some <foo> today" sorts of whims that I can follow.

When I'm cooking, herbs are something I throw in largely for the benefit of my guests, so I need to know how to get them right without being able to judge them for myself.

In mushroom risotto I'd use a bit of fresh black pepper, maybe a bay leaf for richness, and some thyme (fresh if possible), since the nice woody-smoky flavour goes with mushrooms fairly well. Maybe sprinkle some parsley on top just for garnish, or a dollop of fromage frais or creme fraiche; but as various people have said parsley's pretty powerful so take care. Good stock really is everything in a risotto, but I've had plenty of luck with Knorr powdered stock as well as the concentrated bottled stuff you and I used to use.

...oh, and if you can grate the onion finely (I use the Benriner) and fry it slowly, preferably caramelise it a bit, before you start cooking the risotto, that really helps too; adds a lovely sweetish note.

Well, most herbs don't clash madly with most other herbs or food. And most packaging comes with handy hints on the side like :goes well with chicken. Or with unsubtle titles like: Pork seasoning.

So mostly you can get away with going for: needs more herbs, or OK, it's herby enough. Rosemary is very aromatic though, so be careful how much you use.

I was thinking more whimsical than that. ';Today I like the sound of the word marjoram, so we'll have some of that'

I get all my expertise from Catherine Whitehorn (Cooking in a Bedsitter, first edition). I think her approach to herbs goes something like:

• Basil with tomatoes (optional)
• Mixed herbs with everything else

As she points out, this has the advantage that you don't have 15 types of herb turning to grass on your window-sill.

Clearly, talking about cooking makes one popular.

I dunno about that. Asking about cooking seems to have made me popular; just talking about it wasn't nearly as effective, and in particular I didn't see an enormous queue of people lining up to be my next guinea-pig :-)

I'm quite prepared to guinea-pig, if you're going to cook something Gareth's prepared to eat. It would seem a bit mean for him not to get fed.

Cooking something Gareth will eat has been a challenge I've been pondering for some time. If I come up with anything I'll let you know :-)

That's very kind. I think he'd eat mushroom risotto. I find it a bit of a challenge too.

My current mushroom risotto recipe contains onion; I'll need to figure out a substitute, or leave it out completely. But that's probably not impossible. Hmm.