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WBM july 2013
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garden sits
behind Aubriana’s
restaurant in
downtown
Wilmington.
Executive Chef Tyson Amick creates recipes with
the fresh basil, mint, thyme, sage, cutting celery,
stevia, baby kale, sorrel, rosemary, parsley, chives
and other herbs from his garden. Leaves from the
tomato plants offer a new base for pesto and other
recipes — contrary to popular belief that tomato
leaves are not edible, Amick says.
He uses a lot more “soft” herbs, like basil, in the
summer rather than “hard” herbs, like rosemary.
In caring for herbs, he says to watch how
much you cut them back.
“A lot of people tend to cut a lot more off
of the plant too fast, and it ends up dying as a
result. You need to know when to say when, and
let the plant have a breather,” he says.
When cooking, he says it’s important to use fresh
herbs later in the preparation of the dish.
“That’s a big thing. I don’t know if it’s some-thing
that’s rampant in home kitchens, but it seems
to be a pretty common misconception amongst a
lot of cooks . . . soft herbs — even hard herbs —
don’t need to be used until much later in the dish.”
If you are making soup, for example, and you
add the herbs too early, then they will significantly
lose flavor during the cooking process. So Amick
suggests adding herbs at the last moment possible.
He says summer herbs are very delicate and
applying heat can harm them.
“A perfect example of that is basil. I think basil
tastes terrible if you add it to something that gets
cooked for any lengthy period of time,” says Amick.
In making pizza, many people put fresh basil on
the pizza before they put it in the oven. “That’s just
not a good idea,” says Amick. “Because basil will
burn really easily, but even if it doesn’t burn, the
flavor of it becomes severely changed, it becomes
dull, it loses all of that bright fresh quality that it
has.” He says wait until the pizza comes out of the
oven and then put the basil on top.
Fresh herbs offer the perfect finish to almost any
dish. “You add a small amount of minced fresh
herb to it at the last minute, whether that be
soup, or some kind of salsa, relish, vinaigrette,
anything — a little bit of chlorophyll at the end
causes your palate to perceive all of the flavors a
lot faster. So it’s a really, really useful finishing
technique and it has a much bigger impact on
food than, say, adding salt.”
savor — guide to food & dining on the azalea coast
Above: Chef Tyson
Amick of Aubriana’s
selects fresh herbs
from the small
garden in the court-yard
behind the
restaurant. Right:
Green Eggs and
Ham: sunny side up
farm egg, smoked
prosciutto, organic
asparagus and
tender herb salad,
truffle oil and pure
parsley chlorophyll
and challah toast.
A