How to make a bouquet garni … kitchen helper
What is a bouquet garni?
A bouquet garni is called for in many recipes, especially French recipes. They add flavour to soups, stews, slow-cooked dishes, and stocks. They can also be added to the cavity of a roast chicken.
They’re a little flavour bomb of herbs, the classic combination being thyme, parsley, bay leaf and rosemary.
They can be made of dried herbs, or if you have them to hand, fresh herbs.
They’re bundled up in a piece of muslin and tied up with kitchen string and flavour your dish with their aromatics. The reason they are tied up in muslin is for easy retrieval once the dish is cooked, and so parts of herbs which might not be palatable to consume don’t escape into the dish.
How to make a bouquet garni
Combine two tablespoons each of dried parsley, dried thyme and dried rosemary, and two whole bay leaves, and place in the middle of a small square of cheesecloth or muslin. Draw the corners together to form a bundle, and twist and tie off with kitchen string.
Make up several of these, put them in nice glass jar and give them to a foodie friend as a gift.
If using fresh herbs, make them up when you need them, tying one or two sprigs of each herb plus two bay leaves into a bundle, and then tying these into muslin as above.
