Thursday 2 February 2006

A Recipe for Chick & Dill

The long holiday (CNY plus Maal Hijrah plus FT Day) has put me in a culinary mood. I spent a couple of days poring over my recipe books, looking at all the ones I haven't tried yet (and there are loads,I tell you!). Actually I'm itching to buy a new book - they're wonderfully good to read, and even helped me score some points in a quiz back in uni! But I promised hubby that I'll try each recipe at least once before I buy another book, and since I don't cook that often (and when I do I don't always succeed) it's gonna be a long time till a recipe book features in my MPH receipt!

Anyway, one of the books I already own featured Roast Chicken with Rosemary, which I've never tried but looked easy enough to make. So off we went to Tesco to buy the ingredients for the chicken dish (chicken, rosemary, lemon, potatoes) and load up on Bonuslink points in the process (I'm a loyalty card junkie, so kill me!).

Tesco had a selection of fresh herbs in packets. I was a bit disappointed as I was looking forward to the potted variety where I could line them up on my kitchen counter - like I really have all the space in the world for a row of potted kitchen herbs! The herb shelf listed rosemary, dill, tarragon and a few others. What they didn't have was the name of the herb on the packet itself. As if we Malaysians know our Western herbs that well! So I made a guess and picked up a packet, hoping it was the right one.

The next day, I promised Mak to have dinner at her place, since it was Maal Hijrah and she invited us to break fast with her (Hubby fasted, I didn't). I made lasagna (first time too!) and decided to put in some of the fresh herb I bought. I took a sniff at the stuff - didn't seem to have such a strong smell, so picked quite a bunch. When I started chopping it up though, the aroma filled my not-so-big kitchen. It smelt familiar, and since I don't know what rosemary smells like, it's definitely not rosemary. I decided to just chuck everything into the meat sauce and hoped for the best.

No one complained about the lasagna, in fact my sisters actually liked it. But the herb (which I later identified as dill) was too pungent for me in the lasagna, as I prefer it with fish. I'm hoping it will still go well with chicken, because I've got loads of dill and chicken but no fish. So just to remind myself of the two herbs, I got pictures off the internet:


This is DILL.


And this is ROSEMARY.

I need to get a chart with pictures of all the different herbs and spices so I get them right next time. Five more recipe books to go!

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