The fresh flavor and bright color of herbs like parsley and cilantro can literally—literally—take a dish from boring to delicious in five seconds. (It's one of the three key ingredients, along with nuts and citrus zest, thatinstantly improve any dish.) Case in point: Throw a handful of chopped herbs into white rice and you suddenly have...wait for it...herbed rice. And that's a side dish worth serving.
But man, picking all those little leaves off the stem can be time-consuming, you know? But here's the thing: You can skip that part.
With soft herbs, including parsley, cilantro, and chervil, the stems are tender and flavorful enough to eat. So instead of spending all that time picking leaves off, do this:
- Grab the bunch of herbs with both hands, placing one hand over the stems and the other at the leafy top of the bunch. (If the bunch is too big, you might have to do this in batches.)
- Gently twist your hands, separating the top leaves from the bottom stems.
- Set aside the stems and chop the leaves.
Yes, you'll have little bits of stem mixed in with the leaves, but you're chopping them up, so what's the big deal? Besides, there's flavor in those stems.
And as for those other stems, the thicker stems that you don't want to chop? Those are your one-way ticket to the#wasteless train. Toss the stems (and this also goes for hearty stems like rosemary, thyme, sage, and basil) into your vegetable stock mix, or stuff inside chicken during roasting. (Discard the stems before eating.) Or turn them intoherb salt. Whatever you do with them, don't throw them away. Those stems gave those herbs life; they have plenty of life to give to your cooking, too.
