Here's one little detail from Paule Caillat's Paris kitchen: a handy bouquet garni box!
A bouquet garni is a little bundle of herbs tied together with kitchen twine, and dropped in a soup, stew, or braise. It's an essential part of French cooking, and it always contains a bay leaf, thyme, and perhaps some parsley or rosemary.
We bundled a bouquet garni together for the pintade that we cooked in Paule's class, and I found this little box full of everything I needed on a shelf in the kitchen. It had twine, scissors, dried thyme, and a sheaf of bay leaves. Clearly Paule makes these little bundles quite often, and she likes to have everything near to hand.
For some reason, I do not often use a classic French bouquet garni. It may be because I don't keep many dried herbs around, or because there is no twine in my kitchen drawer. I think, though, if I put a box like this together, I might cook with it much more often.
How often do you use a bouquet garni in your cooking?
Related: Quick Guide to Every Herb and Spice in the Cupboard
(Image: Faith Durand)
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I use them anytime I make a soup or stew - so pretty much all fall and all winter long!
I drop in bay, rosemary, sage, thyme (whatever's getting leggy in the garden) whenever I make stock (it strains out with everything else) and figure I'm covered. A bouquet garni has always struck me as a bit fussy - and that thing that people do with wrapping a clove of garlic and a couple of cloves or whatever in cheesecloth as rather wasteful (of cheesecloth).
Since I found kitchen twine in a Swiss supermarket, I use it quite often to make a bouquet garni - I hate rosemary needles in my food, that's why.