Project 47: Herbes saleés from chives, garlic thinnings and a few other herbs

My garlic has gotten away from me. I planted a lots of garlic cloves either last fall or maybe the previous year some time. I did not harvest any garlic. I also did not know how far apart the spacing should be so I planted it only a couple inches apart. I have read that 3-4 inches is a good spacing between plants. I definitely have a lot of thinning to do.

Garlic on the left

starting to thin it out

I also have an abundance of chives and want to use more of them. I was puttering in the garden removing the grass growing with my chives. I ended up just digging up a section of chives and grass and then pulling out the grass, harvesting the chives and replanting the root ends. However annoying it is to get grass mixed in with your chives, this really did not need to be done. I was just out in the garden to be out in the garden.

Other things growing in abundance are sage and Greek oregano (I think). I just don’t use a lot of sage. I have read about frying up sage leaves to use as a garnish. I will have to try this. And it’s supposed to make a good tea when you have a sore throat.

I was inspired to make some herbes saleés with some of my herbs and green garlic. Last Christmas I got a jar of herbes saleés from Meg. Her recipe included just herbs and salt. I have seen recipes that contain carrots, celery and leeks, but I think I’ll stick to the herbs alone. The ratio seems to be about 1/4 cup of salt to 1 cup of fresh finely chopped herbs. Some descriptions simply say to layer herbs with salt in a jar until you get to the top and cover with more salt.

My spring blend herbes saleés contains lots of green garlic and chives, and smaller amount of sage and Greek oregano from the garden and a bit of parsley from the market. I used the approximate ratio of four parts fresh chopped herbs to 1 part sea salt and mixed all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Mostly it tastes salty with a slight herbal flavour. I’ll just keep thinning the garlic in useable amounts and use it instead of garlic cloves. The white parts are very garlicy, but the greens are much milder and kind of grassy.

Spring herbes saleés
June Written by:

Be First to Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *