Herbs & Spices

This recipe from Georgeanne Brennan shows a classic way to cook in a tajine, layering flavors and food together for the slow, moist cooking. It includes the Moroccan sauce sharmula, which gives a spicy flavor and adds moisture to the fish during the cooking. You can make many variations on this dish, substituting chicken for fish or tomatoes and eggplant for artichokes.

In the south of France, beautiful large ripe tomatoes are often stuffed with herbs and bread crumbs, then served with grilled fish. Here, the tomatoes are wood-roasted for added flavor. You can play with other herbs such as dill or marjoram in the stuffing.

These potatoes are the best roasted potatoes you’ve ever tasted! The radiant heat from the salt crisps the skin while holding in the natural moisture of the potatoes. This method can be used for roasting other vegetables, such as beets, sweet potatoes, and even small acorn squash. The salt can be saved and reused for roasting another batch of vegetables. Or you can place some of the salt in a jar to add to the flavored-salt collection in your pantry.

Paula Wolfert and I revised this fabulous dish of hers for cooking in my wood-fired oven. The key is to cook it until the lamb is falling-apart tender. The recipe is adapted from Paula’s book, The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen. It comes from the southern Italian region of Apulia, where it is baked in a shallow terra-cotta dish called a tiella. You can make it entirely in the wood-fired oven, or cook the onions and brown the lamb on the stove top, then move it all to the oven to finish cooking.

Smoking duck with tea is an Asian tradition. This recipe uses a fragrant brew of Darjeeling tea, fresh ginger, and star anise for roasting rather than smoking. The tea brine gives the duck a dark, smoky flavor. My favorite way of roasting the duck is in the La Caja China box roaster. The duck comes out a beautiful mahogany color and is succulent and moist, with a smoky taste and a crisp skin. An Asian-influenced basting sauce is used as a mop a few times over the course of roasting. Tea brine can be made with other black teas, such as oolong or Earl Grey. It can also be used for roasted chicken or even pork.

This tasty roasted chicken recipe is from Cheryl and Bill Jamison and is adapted from their book, Smoke & Spice. We made this together at their home in Santa Fe and adapted it to the Big Green Egg, which works perfectly at 250 to 275°F. The birds were a beautiful tobacco color from the oak lump charcoal smoke. If you like, add any leftover rub to the mop for additional flavor.

Beef tenderloin is very lean and cooks quickly. Cooking over wood enhances the flavor of the meat as well as the vegetables. You can substitute small potatoes if you can’t find parsnips. This can easily be made in a conventional oven, though the smoky flavors will be missing. The Horseradish sauce is a version my mom always made to serve with prime rib at Christmas.

This recipe is simple but packed with flavor. You can substitute other shellfish, such as mussels or shrimp or cracked crab, or a combination of all of these. This version gives a nod to Provence, using herbes de Provence and Pernod. The rich liquor created by the combination of the shellfish, garlic, wine, and herbs is the best part! Bake up some No-Knead Dutch Oven Bread (page 85) to accompany this delightful dish.

Who doesn’t love crispy, salty potatoes? This simple Spanish-influenced dish is a fine accompaniment to grilled fish. The saffron-scented aioli dressing is also wonderful tossed with pasta or on other seasonal vegetables. This dish is even more stunning when made with Peruvian purple potatoes.

This is a dish you can make with little preparation or cooking time. Anyone can be a successful shrimp griller. The key things to remember are: (1) brine the shrimp to assure moistness; (2) grill them with the shells on; (3) don’t overcook them. The brightly flavored vinaigrette can be served with any other grilled fish or even chicken.

This recipe from award-winning cookbook author John Ash features plank roasting, an old technique used by the Northwest Indians who tied or nailed salmon to cedar or alder planks and tilted them over an open fire to cook. The cure in this recipe flavors the fish and acts as a brine to keep it moist.

Tandoori chicken is easily identified by its red color and is named for the oven it’s cooked in. The tandoor is a cylindrical clay or ceramic oven heated to temperatures of 550° to 750°F or more. Meat and vegetables are skewered, then lowered into the oven. The high heat creates a crisp crust and leaves the meat moist. For the best flavor, marinate overnight. The red food coloring is optional. This recipe is adapted to a grill or Big Green egg ceramic cooker, which is the next best thing to an actual tandoor oven.

A rich, fragrant dish, these duck breasts are perfumed with the aromatics of southwest France, then grilled to crisp the fatty skin. Served sliced and fanned over tender baby greens lightly dressed with citrus vinaigrette, this is a wonderful dish to serve as a first course or as a light main course.

Jerry Traunfeld was the executive chef for many years at the HerbFarm in Woodinville, Washington, near seattle and now owns Seattle’s Poppy Restaurant. Jerry’s finely tuned palate served him well in the development of an expansive herb-focused menu at the award-winning restaurant. Jerry’s version of naan, a simple flatbread from India by way of Afghanistan, was created for this book. Filled with a combination of flavor-packed herbs and richly flavored cashews, it’s wonderful!

This multilayered flatbread is made by spreading the dough with the filling, then folding, rolling, and cooking quickly on both sides on a hot cast-iron griddle or stone. I love to serve them as an appetizer and often add a bit of salty crumbled cheese such as sheep’s milk feta to the filling.