Herbalicious

Until I began collaborating on a cookbook for Kokkari, the popular San Francisco Greek restaurant, I rarely had much use for fresh dill. Now I am rarely without it. Over several months of working with Kokkari’s chef, Erik Cosselmon, I got re-acquainted with dill’s vivid, grassy scent and began finding all sorts of dishes that it enhanced. It’s such a delicate presence that it’s hard to use too much—unlike tarragon or rosemary, which can be thugs.

Like a lot of cooks, I need an occasional nudge to venture beyond the seasonings I usually reach for. Here’s where I’ll be using dill this summer:

In Pickled Yellow Wax Beans with Fresh Dill
In butter lettuce salads with shaved fennel and radishes
In a salad of grated beets, toasted walnuts and yogurt
With fresh tomatoes, purslane and cucumbers
In a “carpaccio” of shaved green and yellow zucchini with olive oil and lemon juice
In anything made with eggs: scrambled eggs; a spinach omelet; a frittata with feta cheese and cherry tomatoes
On green beans with red onion
In warm fingerling potato salad
With fresh shelling beans, like cranberry beans, black-eyed peas and limas