About cooking with lavender
Recipes
The culinary use of lavender is known as long as its therapeutic use. Ancient peoples and civilizations used lavender for making desserts and cakes, seasoning fish and meat and various other purposes. Today, the use of lavender in cooking is constantly increasing and new applications are constantly being discovered. We will list some of the products you can try to produce yourself.
Lavender gives a nice note of acid and sweet dishes. Nevertheless, make sure that the aroma of lavender does not prevail over the whole recipe.
Do not marinate meat in lavender for more than 48 hours. The action of lavender and fat will produce soapy, unpleasant taste, if left too long to marinate.
Lavender has a natural affinity for red meat, game and bird meat; for the rich taste of fish and for red and black fruits like plums, blackberries and so on.
It is also used to give tastes to desserts such as ice cream, sorbets and grilled or BBQ dishes.
Lavender cookies
• ½ cup of butter
• ½ cup cheese spread
• 1 cup of sugar
• 2 teaspoons of dried lavender flower
• 1 egg
• 2 cups of flour
• 1/3 cup marmalade or jam
In the bowl, mix the cheese spread and butter. Add sugar, lavender flower, egg and flour. Pour the mix in an oiled pan or baking tin. Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for max 20 minutes. Do not burn (caramelize) the upper side. Remove and spread with with marmalade or jam. Sprinkle with nuts, hazelnuts or almonds.
Grilled salmon with lavender
Cut an extra bunch of flowering lavender and put the stalks in a glass of water for 45 minutes to 2 hours. The soaked herbs can be strewn on the coals of the grill as the salmon cooks and the resulting smoke lends a faint camphor and pine flavor to the cooking salmon.
• 2 to 4 large cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons fresh lavender buds
• 1/4 cup tamari or soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
• 4 fresh salmon fillets
1. In a large bowl, mash the garlic and lavender buds together. Stir in the tamari, honey, lemon juice, and oils, whisking to blend together.
2. Add the salmon fillets to the bowl, cover, and marinate for 30 minutes or longer.
3. At serving time, fire a barbecue grill and place salmon fillets—skin side down—on the grill. Cook for 8 to 12 minutes, basting frequently with the marinade, then turn fillets once and cook another minute or more until the flesh is opaque and flakes easily with a fork.
Lavender sorbet
• 500 ml of water
• 150 grams of sugar
• 100 grams of honey
• 1 tablespoon of dried lavender flowers
• juiceof ½ lemon
Mix water, sugar and honey and warm up until sugar and honey melt. Remove from the fire, add the lavender, cover and leave for half an hour. Pour, add lemon juice and follow the instructions of your ice cream maker.
