Description of a French bunch of fragrant herbs - garni bouquet. Vitamins and minerals that make up it. What are the benefits of the product and whether it can be harmful. Recipes for delicious dishes with aromatic spices. You also need to be careful about the use of seasoning for allergy sufferers, pregnant women, since parsley can cause contractions of the uterus and provoke a miscarriage, as well as nursing to avoid allergic reactions in a child.
If you have a serious illness not listed, or any other health problem or are taking strong medications, be sure to check with your doctor before adding the seasoning to your diet.
Recipes with a bouquet of garni
As we said at the beginning of the article, the garni bouquet is most popular today in the kitchens of sunny Provence. Here this seasoning was born and here its use continues. However, other regions also accepted it - a fragrant bunch of herbs can be found today in the kitchen of a Russian housewife, an American, an Italian with the same success as in the kitchen of a French woman. At the same time, however, most likely, in "foreign lands" the bouquet of garni will be present not in the traditional form - parsley, lavrushka, thyme, but in the regional cuisine supplemented in accordance with that. If you have never dealt with a seasoning from France before, we offer you several options for how you can use a bouquet of garni in recipes:
- Onion soup … Cook broth (500 ml) - chicken broth works best, but you can use broth on other meats or vegetables. At worst, take water. Cut the onion (1 kilogram) into thin half rings, fry it in a frying pan in butter (50 grams). Reduce heat to low, put a bouquet of garni (1 piece) and simmer for 5-7 minutes. Pour onion with white wine (250 ml) - preferably dry, bring it to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for another 3-5 minutes. Remove the herbs, pour the wine onion into the broth. Bring soup to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 10 minutes. At this time, cook croutons in a pan or in a toaster. Serve the soup with toasted bread and topped with cheese (four servings will require about 100 grams of cheese).
- French chicken … Take a whole chicken, put a bouquet of garni (1 piece) inside the carcass. Spread the whole chicken generously with butter (you need about 50 grams), salt and pepper. Place the chicken in the oven in a mold, in which put also the unpeeled heads of garlic (3-4 pieces) and another bouquet of garni (1 piece). The chicken should be baked for 1, 5-2 hours, depending on the weight, periodically it should be watered with the juice flowing from it. When the meat is ready, put it out of the mold and add dry white wine (100 ml) and water (100 ml) to it. Bring the contents of the form to a boil, turn off the heat, mash the garlic, cook for 5 minutes, then add olive oil (2 tablespoons) and strain the sauce through a sieve. Serve the chicken with the sauce; baked potatoes are the perfect side dish.
- Pork stew with vegetables … Heat vegetable oil (2-3 tablespoons) in a frying pan and fry pork (900 grams), cut into large cubes, until golden brown - if necessary, you can safely add oil. Remove the meat from the pan and place finely chopped onions (1), carrots (1), garlic (8 cloves) and celery (1 stalk). Simmer for 5-7 minutes. Pour red dry wine (600 ml) into the pan, add a bouquet of garni (1 piece), salt and pepper to taste, simmer vegetables with spices for an hour. Then return the meat to the pan, add the broth or water (300 ml) and cook for another 30 minutes. Put the meat again and let the vegetable sauce evaporate to thicken, return the pork again. Serve with rice and fresh vegetables.
- Beef tongue salad … Peel carrots (1), turnips (1) and leeks (1), do not cut. Boil the beef tongue (400 grams) for 5 minutes, then drain the water, rinse the meat, transfer to a clean pan along with the prepared vegetables and a bouquet of garni (1 piece), add water, bring to a boil. Season with salt and pepper to taste and cook for 1.5 hours. Dip the bell pepper (2 pieces) in boiling water and cook for 10 minutes, and then "cut" - remove the skin, remove the seeds and cut into thin strips. Lettuce salad (1 piece), rinse and dry. Prepare the dressing - combine wine vinegar (2 tablespoons), olive oil (5 tablespoons), mustard (1 tablespoon), some salt and pepper. Pull the boiled tongues out of the broth, peel, cut into strips. Place lettuce leaves, then bell peppers and finally the tongue on portioned plates. Pour the sauce over the top, garnish with olives (50 grams).
Well, here are just a few recipes in which the garni bouquet "sounds" great, but this seasoning is, in fact, universal, so you can safely add it to any dish. She will bring new notes to your signature, but already slightly boring dishes. Do not forget that you can experiment with the seasoning itself, adding new ingredients to it.
Interesting facts about the garni bouquet
It is noteworthy that a bouquet of garni is undoubtedly a find of the French, but today you can sometimes hear such phrases as "German garni", "American garni", etc. This is due to the fact that each nation has its own recipe for this seasoning, but from a historical point of view, such a name change is not entirely correct.
The name of the seasoning in French sounds like "bouquet garni", which literally stands for "mixed bouquet" or "a bouquet of necessary accessories." In the Middle Ages in France, there was a special recipe for a bunch of fragrant herbs, which even had its own name "paquet", which means "package". This "grade" of seasoning was prepared from traditional herbs, but it was not wrapped in a bag, but in a piece of bacon. It's funny that despite the craze for healthy eating and the popularization of avoiding animal protein, in Europe today the "package" is back in vogue.
It is almost impossible to find ready-made bouquets of garni on sale in our country, but you can always buy fresh herbs, collect them in a bunch and dry them yourself, especially since the ingredients of the classic seasoning are available and it is not difficult to get them.
Watch the video about the garni bouquet:
Garni's bouquet is a fragrant aromatic spice made in the form of a bunch of herbs. It is versatile and able not only to add new notes to familiar dishes, but also to reveal the secret of the amazing taste of signature French dishes. However, a fragrant bunch can make food not only tastier, but also healthier, so if you have no contraindications to its use, be sure to "settle" fragrant spicy bouquets in the kitchen.
