Lavender Recipes

A member of the mint family and related to rosemary, sage, and thyme, it’s perhaps not surprising that lavender has been used in cooking for thousands of years.

Used by the Romans to flavour fish and Medieval monks to add a floral touch to sweet puddings, over the course of the last century, the use of lavender in cooking had become less popular.

However, over recent years, we’ve seen a resurgence of this aromatic herb’s popularity, with it popping up in everything from deserts and cocktails through to savoury dishes.

The wonderful aromatics of lavender that are well known in the world of fragrance can also be used in cooking, providing wonderful flavours in both sweet and savoury dishes.

Choosing the Right Lavender

Lavender has a wide range of uses. When cooking with lavender, it’s important that you use lavender that is culinary/edible, rather than a type that has been prepared for other uses, which may have been treated with chemicals or harmful pesticides.

With the sweetest fragrance of all varieties of lavender, English Lavender is most commonly used in cooking with its sweet and mellow flavour.

Using Lavender in Cooking

Lavender is incredibly versatile and lends itself perfectly to use in a wide range of dishes. The taste is similar to its scent, bringing together a mix of sweet pine, camphor, and rosemary with a touch of eucalyptus thrown in for good measure.

Its wonderful flavour can be used to soften the tartness of acidic fruits, making it ideal for use with stewed fruits such as plums, rhubarb, and berries, particularly when making jams.

Fresh spikes of lavender work really well in lamb recipes and complement the flavour of herbs such as fennel, sage, and oregano, while lavender tea not only tastes great, but can also help to address the symptoms of upset stomachs and insomnia.

For sweet dishes, adding lavender into a sugar bowl will add a delicate, flowery touch that will enhance baked goods, it can also be sprinkled over biscuits and cakes, or even mixed into sorbets. Balance out its low notes with lemon juice and zest.

With their wonderful purple, blue, and lilac tones, lavender flowers also add a beautiful touch of colour and flavour to salads!

Remember, when cooking with lavender, a little goes a long way! If you’re not following a recipe, make sure you use it sparingly to avoid overwhelming the other flavours in the dish.

Here are some of our favourite Lavender recipes:

1. Lavender Marshmallows

To make 36 lavender marshmallows you will need:

– 3–4 tablespoons of dried culinary lavender buds

– 1–2 tablespoons granulated sugar

– 14g powdered gelatine

– 450g caster sugar

– 1 tbsp sunflower oil

– 50g icing sugar, plus extra for dredging

– 50g cornflour, plus extra for dredging

Method

1. Make a lavender syrup to flavour the marshmallows. Add 2 tablespoons of dried culinary lavender and 2 tablespoons of water to a small pan and bring to the boil. Boil this for a couple of minutes until the liquid has reduced a little and then to cool and infuse for at least 2 hours. NB. This will make a very strongly flavoured syrup, which may not be suitable for other recipes.

2. Combine the gelatine and 100ml of cold water in a bowl and set aside for 10 minutes until the gelatine has softened.

3. Meanwhile pour the caster sugar and 175ml water into a heavy based saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring continuously until the sugar has dissolved. Once you have a clear syrup decrease the heat and simmer gently for 15-20 minutes (without stirring) until the mixture reaches 113˚C when measured on a sugar thermometer (this is also known as ‘soft ball’ stage).

4. Now immediately place the softened gelatine in the bowl of a stand mixer and start to beat on a low speed. Next slowly pour the hot sugar syrup into the bowl in a steady stream, whisking continuously until all of the syrup has been combined.

5. Add 1 teaspoon of the lavender syrup and then increase the whisking speed and beat very fast for 15-20 minutes, until the mixture has thickened, cooled and is beginning to set.

6. Meanwhile prepare a 20cm square baking tin, by greasing it with the sunflower oil, lining with baking parchment, greasing again with the oil and then coating the inside with a mixture of the cornflour and icing sugar (reserve the rest of this mixture for later).

7. Pour in the marshmallow mixture, smooth the top and then dust with some of the reserved icing sugar and cornflour. Cover the tin with cling film and leave the cool at room temperature for 1–2 hours.

8. Meanwhile, make a lovely lavender sugar to coat your marshmallows by grinding 1 tablespoon of dried culinary lavender with 1–2 tablespoons of granulated sugar.

9. Turn out the marshmallow block onto a surface dusted with the remaining icing sugar and cornflour mix, cut them into 36 squares and then dredge in the lavender sugar.

2. Lavender and Lemon Panna Cotta

Panna Cotta is often the perfect dessert to serve as an indulgent treat between Christmas and New Year, when you still want something luxurious but definitely need something just that little bit lighter. The combination of floral lavender and fresh zest lemon tempered by the silky-smooth cream is just the ticket!

To serve for 4, you will need:

– Heat 250ml whole milk, 250ml double cream, the zest of 1 lemon, 25g caster sugar and 1 teaspoon of our lovely dried culinary lavender until just before boiling point. Then take off the heat and leave to infuse for at least an hour.

Method

1. Soak 3 gelatine leaves in cold water until softened.

2. Squeeze the excess water from the gelatine leaves and add to the pan.

3. Gently reheat the cream, stirring all the time until the gelatine has dissolved.

4. Strain the liquid into a jug and then pour it into 4 oiled ramekins.

5. Place the Panna cottas in the fridge for at least an hour until set and then simply turn out and enjoy!

3. Grilled Duck Breasts with Lavender

The deep luxuriousness of duck is perfect at Christmas, but the fatty meat does need something fragrant to cut the richness. But forget orange or cherry, lavender can be the perfect thing. This recipe simply seasons duck breasts with lavender salt before grilling.

– Use a pestle and mortar to crush 1 teaspoon of dried culinary lavender buds. Once partially ground add 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt flakes and further pound to combine into a fragrant rub. Or if you’re short on time simply reach for a jar of our Lavender and herb salt!

– Score the fat of the duck breasts at 1cm intervals, making sure that you cut right through the fat but not into the meat.

– Rub a generous sprinkle of lavender salt into the skin and leave for 5 minutes to infuse.

4. Lavender Eton Mess

Eton Mess is a truly scrummy dessert, especially when you add a hint of our wonderful Jersey lavender. Have a go at our recipe, and you could almost pretend that you’re enjoying it with us!

Ingredients

– 2 large egg whites

– 100g caster sugar

– 1–2 teaspoons of dried culinary lavender

– Drop of purple food colouring (optional)

– 300ml double cream

– 500g punnet of strawberries

– Lavender syrup

Method

1. In a large, clean bowl, whisk the egg whites to form soft peaks.

2. Whisk the caster sugar into the egg whites little by little until the meringue becomes smooth and glossy.

3. Grind the dried culinary lavender in a pestle and mortar until it creates a fine powder, then sprinkle over the meringue and whisk in with a drop of purple food colouring (if using) until combined and a gorgeous light lavender colour.

4. Place spoonful’s of the meringue onto a lined baking sheet and bake at 120˚C for approx. 2 hours until crisp but not coloured.

5. Just before serving, whisk the double cream until it creates soft, floppy peaks.

6. Combine with the roughly chopped strawberries, the crumbled meringue and swirl through a drizzle of lavender syrup.

5. Salmon With Lavender

As summer is approaching (not to try to tempt fate and consign us to yet another wash out summer – even here on the sun-drenched island of Jersey) we were thinking about whiling away long balmy summer evenings surrounded by our gorgeous lavender fields. But what should we be eating during these summers of lavender loveliness? We were wracking our brains for a lovely light summer main course, which would also include a little hint of our wonderful Jersey culinary lavender, when we happened across the June 2014 issue of Good Housekeeping Magazine and this fantastic recipe!

Ingredients

– 75 ml olive oil

– 1 kg side of salmon

– 4 tsp honey

– 100g shelled pistachios, finely chopped

– Zest of half a lemon

– 1 tblsp culinary lavender

– 3 spring onions, finely chopped

– 70 g watercress

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 180˚c. Line a baking tray with lightly greased parchment.

2. Lay the salmon in the centre of the parchment, skin side down.

3. Mix the remaining oil with the honey and brush half of this over the salmon.

4. Combine the remaining honey mixture with the chopped pistachios, lemon zest, half the culinary lavender and the spring onions to form a chunky paste.

5. Spread the paste over the fish and bake in the centre of the oven for 15-20 minutes, until the fish is just cooked and the topping is golden.

6. Serve on a bed of watercress with the remaining lavender sprinkled over.

6. Beef and Lavender Stew

We often think of lavender as more of a summer flavour, think about feather-light lavender scones or shortbread and creamy cool lavender panna cotta. But what about something that would fall more under the category of a ‘winter warmer’? So we put our thinking aprons on and landed at about a lovely slow-cooked beef and lavender stew.

So to make yourself a yummy beef and lavender stew, it really couldn’t be easier!

1. Get some lovely British casserole beef and dust it in a mixture of flour, seasoning, dried thyme, and our scrummy dried culinary lavender. Then sear it in a spot of oil until lightly browned – don’t take it too far, as the lavender may burn.

2. Tip the beef into a casserole or slow cooker and add a few sliced onions, carrots, and chunks of potato (a waxy variety, such as Anya, Pink Fir Apple, or Estima, works best, and seriously who can be bothered to peel?)

3. Deglaze the pan that you seared the beef in with a good splosh of red wine and add this to the casserole with enough chicken stock (beef stock can overpower the flavour of the lavender) to come about two-thirds of the way up the other ingredients in the dish.

4. Give everything a stir and then pop a lid on and either put in a 150 °C oven for 3 hours or leave in the slow cooker, until it’s looking totally delicious!

5. Serve with crusty bread and eat it in front of the fire! Bliss.

7. Grilled Salmon with Lavender

The oily flavour of salmon is really complimented and lifted by the floral lavender in this simple, yet delicious recipe.

1. Firstly, make a sauce by bubbling together equal parts of honey, olive oil with half the amount of white wine vinegar or lemon juice and a few teaspoons of culinary lavender.

2. Cook the sauce until it has reduced by a third.

3. Then simply spoon a little of the sauce over a seasoned salmon fillet, before grilling it under a medium heat.

4. During cooking, occasionally baste the salmon with the sauce, and grill until the fish is just cooked through and flakes easily.

8. Lavender Dukkah

Dukkah is a traditional Middle Eastern spice mix which combines ground toasted hazelnuts, sesame seeds, coriander, and cumin seeds with lavender flowers, salt, and pepper. This is delicious when sprinkled over lots of different types of fish, but we particularly like it with mackerel, before grilling or roasting.

9. Lavender Stuffed Sea Bass

Sea Bass is one of our favourite fish, and a great way to cook it with lavender is to stuff the cavity of a whole fresh sea bass with a few slices of lemon and a light sprinkling of our lovely culinary lavender (remember that less is sometimes more with lavender!). The pop it under a grill or in a hot pan until the fish is cooked through and wonderfully scented with fragrant lavender. Also, don’t worry if you can’t get hold of a whole fish, you can sandwich 2 fillets together with the filling and secure with a couple of skewers during cooking.

10. Barbecued lamb with a lavender and thyme crust

This recipe really makes the most of the smokey charred effect that your BBQ can produce. You can do this with anything from a quick lamb chop to a whole butterflied leg of lamb. Simply mix together a little of our dried culinary lavender, a good handful of chopped fresh or dried thyme with some crushed garlic, seasoning and just enough olive oil to bring the mixture into a paste. Rub this into your lamb and leave it to marinate, ideally overnight. Then slowly cook your lamb on the BBQ until a lovely crust has formed, and the meat is meltingly pink (or however you like it) in the centre.

11. Lavender and honey chicken

For a foolproof way to get the stickiest and tenderest chicken drumsticks on the BBQ, we always drizzle them with a little olive oil and seasoning and give them a good roasting in the oven first. Then simply mix together a teaspoon of our dried culinary lavender, with a tablespoon of honey and a little lemon zest and juice. Brush this over your just cooked chicken and then pop it on the BBQ to caramelise to sticky lavender perfection!

12. Barbecued peaches with honey and lavender

This delicious way to finish any BBQ is so simple it can hardly be called a recipe! Simply halve and destine some peaches and wrap them into a foil parcel with a few drizzles of honey and a couple of sprigs of fresh lavender or a sprinkling of our dried culinary lavender if yours isn’t flowering yet. Pop the parcel on the BBQ for 10–15 minutes, or until the smell is so good that you can’t bear to wait any longer. Serve as they are or with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. Yum yum yum!

 

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