June 15, 2006

This week Zahrah Nasir explains different methods of drying herbs at home which are extremely simple, worthwhile and rewarding

Dried herbs, fruits, vegetables, flowers and even foliage are all pretty useful items to have around, both for practical and ornamental purposes.

Such things are usually on the expensive side if you purchase them from stores and the range of available dried varieties is normally very narrow and limited indeed. It is extremely simple, worthwhile and rewarding to dry your own, particularly if you have first grown these things in your garden or in plant pots on a balcony or terrace.

Dried herbs are often more ‘powerful’ than their fresh counterparts as, when the moisture content is naturally evaporated during the drying process, the residual matter is highly condensed, thus making the inherent herbal properties many times stronger. A teaspoon of dried parsley for example is equivalent to approximately one large handful of the fresh plant.

Many herbs have both culinary and medicinal properties, others are purely medicinal. But as home-made medicinal remedies should only be administered by a knowledgeable, preferably qualified, professional herbalist, I won’t go in detail about these here as I do not want any of my readers to suffer adverse effects from misinterpreting the information.

The most commonly used culinary herbs, sold at high prices for small quantities of imported, fancily packed dried material are parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, marjoram, basil, mint and dill. All of these are easy to grow. Seeds should be autumn sown in hot areas of the country and spring sown in cooler regions, with the exception of basil which should be spring sown throughout the country and all grow well in 10-inch clay pots as well as in prepared beds directly in the garden.

Herbs for drying are best picked before they begin to flower, at which stage the leaves tend to be rather tough with the exception of thyme. All varieties of thyme and there are many of them, should be harvested when the flowers begin to open in order to obtain the best flavour possible.

Culinary herbs can be hung up in small bunches in a shaded area which benefits from a thorough breeze, and a covered veranda can be ideal depending on the dryness of the climate. Any moisture in the air damages the herbs and prevents them from drying out properly and they can even go mouldy and bad, wasting all of your time and effort.

Herbs dried in direct sunlight tend to lose much of their strength and aroma. In an air-conditioned home you can successfully dry herbs by hanging them on any convenient object in the house, a row of bunches suspended from a coat hanger for instance, or you may find that they dry faster when spread out thinly on pieces of newspaper, though you may end up with so many sheets of newspaper spread around that it will be difficult to manoeuver from the kitchen to the dining room!

Herbs can also be dried by spreading them around in open-weave baskets which allow for easy air circulation, this being one of my own favourite methods.

Once the herbs are completely dry, test by crumbling a few leaves in your fingers. If they crumble cleanly then fine, if they are still a little rubbery then they need more time. Store them in completely air-tight containers with a little sachet of silica for good measure as this will lengthen their storage life. Containers of dried herbs are best stored in a cool, dark place if possible.

Dried vegetables have made a comeback these days, particularly the Italian versions which, after being sun dried are stored in olive oil and then offered at ludicrously high prices indeed. Vegetables which are easily sun dried include tomatoes, capsicums, chillies, mushrooms and aubergines. You should select only top quality vegetables for drying purposes, thoroughly cleaning them and cutting away any unwanted parts.

The vegetables should then be very thinly sliced, spread on clean metal trays, in the case of mushrooms a flattish basket is fine, and put out in direct sunshine to dry but not if there is any humidity in the atmosphere as this will spoil them completely.

The finely cut vegetables may need turning over a few times during the drying process which can take as little as two days and as long as six days depending on temperatures. You may also like to loosely cover them with very fine muslin cloth to keep the flies at bay.

The finished product can be stored in airtight containers or, as the Italians do, in sterilised glass jars filled to the top with olive oil. In some rural areas of Pakistan sliced turnips, potatoes and carrots are dried for use in a variety of traditional dishes.

It is now possible to purchase specially designed, electric powered dryers for fruits and vegetables but as these are imported they are very highly priced indeed and only dry a small quantity at a time. Solar powered dryers are indigenously made and have a very high capacity, but as I do not have any personal experience of using one I cannot vouch for their efficiency. However, if they are anything like the solar oven I purchased then they are a complete waste of time!

Dried flowers, foliage and seed pods are increasingly popular with floral artists who are always on the lookout for something new to add to their tasteful arrangements.

All of these are dried by hanging in bunches in a shaded, breezy area although some, such as the seed pods of poppies, can be left on the plants until they are almost dry and then brought in for the final stages.

Flowers suitable for drying include: roses in bud, larkspur, lavender, statice, helichrysums, alliums, bergamot, elecampane, teasel and yarrow.

Foliage for drying includes: artemesias, bay, all varieties of sage, thymes, santolina and numerous varieties of tree leaves such as the ever popular eucalyptus.

Seed heads used in floral art include: alexanders, alliums, angelica, fennel, aniseed, nigella, poppies, sorrel, sweet cicely, honesty, iris, barley, wheat, ornamental grasses and many more though never enough to keep floral artists completely satisfied.

Dried flowers and foliage for use on greeting cards, book marks and as framed pictures are usually dried flat out between a few absorbent sheets of paper, a complete newspaper is ideal.

The flowers or their single petals and leaves should be lightly pressed flat in the centre half of the newspaper and when the sheet is full, carefully fold the newspaper closed and then lay it underneath a carpet, preferably somewhere that it gets walked on regularly as this pressure keeps the material flat.

The pressed leaves and flowers can take upto one month to completely dry out and very little colour should be lost from the flowers and foliage in the process. The pressed material should be handled with care as it will be quite fragile to the touch. You can then use tweezers and a very light dab of colourless glue to fix them on to greeting cards or whatever in the design of your choice.

Especially manufactured ‘flower presses’ can occasionally be found in ‘hobby’ shops but these are quite costly and very limited in size. The newspaper method is far cheaper, simpler and more versatile. Flowers and leaves can also be pressed between the pages of large, heavy, hardback books but as they can spoil the printed pages don’t use a book which you, or anyone else in the family, values.

Send your gardening queries to zahrahnasir@hotmail.com. Answers to selected questions will appear in a future issue of ‘The Review’.

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