On a Search for Sage Advice

An herbal outlook for the holidays

Dear Tamar:

How do I keep herbs fresh—especially basil? Everything I try seems to fail—except for one time when I put a bunch in a glass of water and left it on the counter. It worked that one time. The next time the leaves turned brown!

-Seeking Sage Advice

Dear Seeking Sage Advice,

Nine years ago I went to the Zen Mountain Monastery for a weekend Sesshin (Zen meditation retreat). It was my very first attempt at meditating. On our second day, each student was tapped on the shoulder to sit alone across from the Roshi (elder Zen teacher) and ask a question. My turn came. I entered a little room, bright light coming through a small window and pillows on the floor. I crossed my legs, looked into the Roshi’s kind, bespectacled eyes, and started crying. No question came to mind. Instead, I heard myself saying: “This is hard.” To which he replied: “What is this?” Which made me cry harder. There, the memory ends, enigmatic and complete.

What does this have to do with herbs? Though your question is good (and I’ll answer it below) I was immediately reminded of myself in that bright room. So, I’ll offer you a version of the response I was given by the Roshi.

What’s the problem that needs solving? Knowing how to keep herbs from going bad doesn’t prevent their going bad. Herbs wilt no faster than other leaves. We’re just more often confronted with their wilting, running out of time to use them. (I’m using “we” to include only those of us who have this problem. I exclude Persian cooks, obviously. And South Asian ones. And Mexican ones…and anyone else who cooks a cuisine that foregrounds herbs.)

The problem isn’t herb storage. It’s having varied and myriad enough herb uses. Just as you need several vinaigrettes in your repertoire to make it through the pretty speckled lettuce heads that charmed you at the market, you need a bevy of herb ideas to do right by your herbs.

These fall into three categories: dishes where an herb is the defining taste (basil pesto or cilantro chutney, for example); dishes that rely on a plethora of herbs as their main ingredient (green goddess dressing, or kuku sabzi—the Persian omelet that requires over a quart of chopped herbs); herby condiments—where herbs are chopped and mixed into fat— which can then be used to herbify dishes over weeks, with no rush and no worry of wilting.

The first category includes why you bought your bunch. The second and third categories are the most important, because it’s better to immediately use what’s left than to look at them dolefully each day. Here are some submissions for your bevy:

• Make green goddess dressing by pureeing leftover herbs, and any soft stems, with a big pinch of salt, an anchovy filet, a chopped half clove of garlic, a big squeeze of lemon juice, and vegetable oil and water to just cover in a blender. Add 1/2 cup of mayonnaise and a little yogurt or sour cream, taste for salt, and dress or dip.

• Make Kuku Sabzi using this recipe by Andy Baraghani. Or try this more elaborate one, by Persian Mama.

• Chop what’s left of any bunch, add a small pinch of salt, and cover it in olive oil by 1/8 to 1/4 inch. Now you have an herby oil. If it’s basil, it’s nearly pesto; if cilantro, almost salsa, and so on. Cover this with a lid and label it “green sauce.” Your herb(y sauce) will stay good for over a week. Use it as is, or add a tiny swipe of garlic paste for a deeper, more complex sauce. Or add chopped nuts and cheese for pesto. Or add citrus zest. Spoon the sauce over pasta, or soup, or beans, or meat, tofu, eggs, rice, toast, yogurt. Or…

• Chop what’s left of a bunch and mix it with plain, whole milk yogurt. This is a yogurt-herb sauce, ready to drizzle over an omelet, or mix into rice, or serve next to meat, or use in a sandwich, or on a salad. Or…

• Chop what’s left and smash it into a stick of room temperature salted butter. Add another ingredient if you like: chopped or pounded garlic and lemon zest; lime zest and chopped jalapeño; finely chopped shallot. Spoon it back into the butter wrapper, or into a little container, then put pats on anything you cook, while it’s hot, relishing the melting butter and vivid flavor.

Or mix the chopped remainder of a bunch of herbs with creme fraiche, or cream cheese, or buttermilk. Then use it to make a vinaigrette, or a sauce, or add it to shaved vegetables to make a slaw. None of the above plans demand big decisions—green goddess lasts for a week, kuku is a perfect snack. They simply ensure that you use your herbs, which is what you bought them for.

To the question of how to store herbs when you get home: For basil or cilantro, keep a bunch (unwashed) like a bouquet, in water, in a mason jar or vase. Store it on the counter or in the refrigerator door. If your bunch once browned thus, the leaves were wet, or cold, or invisibly headed toward decline already. For all other herbs, I use a different strategy. (It also works for basil and cilantro; the first is just easier.) Pick the herbs from their stems, store them unwashed, or washed and well-dried, laid between paper towels in an airtight container. This must be kept in the refrigerator.

Dear cook, nothing can be kept fresh. Keeping fresh is a contradiction in terms: like one hand clapping, like imagining one’s face before one’s parents were born. Use herbs fresh, relying on the ideas above and all those you come across now that you’re on the path of inquiry. I still don’t know what “this” is, which is probably why I find such comfort answering questions about cooking.