I’m planning to try a recipe* today that calls for thyme and sage, without specifying dried or fresh. I presume that it means dried, because the amounts called for are relatively small (a quarter teaspoon each), but I have fresh so I’d like to use fresh.
I’m planning to use a teaspoon of fresh to substitute for the dried. Is that the right conversion? Why would I want to use dried instead of fresh?
*Julia Child’s recipe for Aïgo Bouïdo, or garlic soup.
General rule of thumb is three times the fresh for dried. So yeah, 3/4 to 1 tsp of fresh.
As for why you’d want to use dried, you don’t. Not in that recipe. In a dry rub or mix, or in something where you want to keep the volume of herby stuff down (like a balsamic reduction), then dried is more useful. The only exception I’ve found is oregano - I like the deeper darker flavor of dried; the fresh is too sharp for my taste. But that’s a personal taste thing.
Dried is usually referred to in recipes because more home cooks have dried thyme on hand than fresh thyme.
I tend to preferentially use dried when the fresh herb has too-tiny leaves for me to want to deal with; thyme is the only one that comes to mind at the moment.
The other way around: one that should never ever have dried substituted for fresh is cilantro leaves. Dried just can’t compare to the bright flavor of fresh cilantro.
I agree cilantro ceases to be cilantro when dried. It’s pretty good fresh frozen, and I’ve had a few Thai & Indian moist curry pastes in the past which somehow managed to maintain the flavor. But never dried.
Oregano I only use dried. It doesn’t seem to taste very oregano-ey to me fresh.
I always chop fresh cilantro, add a little water, and freeze in ice cube trays. Not as good as fresh, but pretty good. Same with habanero peppers.
Which reminds me of when my then three year old son saw the prepared ice tray (of habaneros) waiting in the fridge for space to be cleared in the freezer, and though that red had to mean yummy, and took a toddler sized handful and ate it. Fun times!
Ditto for basil. It turns into something resembling tea leaves when dried. Dried thyme holds its flavor pretty well.
Dried basil can be good for long cooked sauces and such, but it becomes something not-basil when dried. Call it ‘Lisab’ or something.
I actually had some basil growing in my garden this year, courtesy of my mother. I forgot I had it, and then when I remembered I went out to clip some. And discovered feral tomatoes had taken over that bed. I guess the previous owners had grown tomatoes there, and some survived.
And that’s the long way of saying – I agree that dried basil cannot be substituted for fresh.