Lavender Infused Honey

Lavender is beginning to enjoy a long overdue resurgence of popularity in today’s kitchens, and so we thought that you might like to have a think about some of the many ways that you can use lavender in your cooking.

To many people when thinking about using lavender as an ingredient, they will think of lavender honey as brought back from those wonderful holidays in Provence surrounded by those fields of swaying lavender. However when thinking about our national pride and our food miles, why not look at a lavender infused honey that we can make closer to home, and is a great alternative?

Unfortunately in the UK we do not have the continuous acres of lavender required to produce French-style lavender honey, but a jar of gorgeous British honey and a packet of our dried culinary lavender can create an absolute lavender-infused honey delight.

To make home-infused Lavender Honey

Simply warm 225g of honey in a double boiler with 3 tablespoons (45g) of dried culinary lavender for between 30mins and 1 hour (depending on how well flavoured you want your honey to be – keep it lighter for a condiment and stronger for cooking). Leave the honey to cool a little and then strain out the lavender through a muslin lined fine sieve. Then jar the honey and either give as fantastic gifts, or eat it all yourself!

Try your lovely home-infused lavender honey in these lovely Glazed Honey and Lavender Chicken Kebabs

Serves 4

4 x boneless chicken breasts
2 tbsp lavender infused honey
8 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 teaspoon Culinary Lavender (add more or less, according to your tastes)
Sea salt & pepper

Method:

– Dice the chicken into bite sized pieces
– Mix all of the remaining ingredients together and marinade (for at least 4 hours)
– Skewer the chicken onto kebab sticks and grill, BBQ or panfry until golden and sticky on the outside whilst still soft and moist in the centre.

Read related articles:

• Lavender Beer
• Cooking With Lavender