Look! A Bouquet Garni Box
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?
(Image: Faith Durand)