An impulse buy - Now what? Fenugreek leaves

"fenugreek’s ideal flavor is one that starts out bitter but ends with a rolling, lingering sweetness." Chintan Padya

I went to the market on Friday - more as a time filler this time than a necessity. But of course I bought up big and now have a fridge stuffed with delicious things I shall have to use. And one of the things i bought was a complete impulse buy - fresh fenugreek - because I had never seen it before. Indeed I had read that it was difficult to come by. In fact when doing this research the implication from the American sites was that it was impossible to buy and not grown in America. I can only assume that here in Australia our South East Asian immigrants are more adventurous and have added it to the list of exotic green things they grow in their market gardens.

I also bought it because I knew I had at least one recipe that used it - one of my favourite Madhur Jaffrey recipes, in which she substituted dill for fenugreek - Chicken in green sauce - which, because it is made with dill rather than fenugreek she says should be called Murg Sooa, not Murg Methi - methi being the hindi word for fenugreek. The link I give above is to a site that has reproduced her recipe. The photograph on the left is from her book, A Taste of India, where it is irritatingly part of a double-page spread and is the chosen dish to cover the join in the middle.

Murg methi, though is a famous Indian dish and I did find one other very delicious looking version which uses the real fenugreek leaves and which also talks a little about fenugreek. The name of the site is Chef Heidi Fink, and I assume that she is the person who writes it. This is her version of Methi Murg, of which she says:

"My personal favourite use for fenugreek is Methi Murgh: Chicken in a Fenugreek Sauce. It is divine: rich, sophisticated, flavourful, ultra-curry but with a delicate complexity unknown to most who have not tried real authentic Indian food." Chef Heidi Fink

And I see she uses dill as well, so maybe I'll try this version this time.

For truth to tell I am becoming a little bit nervous about using fresh fenugreek. I saw one writer say that one should only at it when really young and each stalk had just a couple of leaves. My bunch looks more like this. Many more leaves than two.

Others describe it as bitter or pungent, so as, I say I am a little nervous. I suspect it's one of those love/hate things as those in favour rave on about it extensively.

The seeds are a different thing, with, I gather, a different flavour, but they too are supposed to be used sparingly. They are basically the scent of curry.

"fenugreek has a distinctive pungent flavour that I can only describe as Ultra-Curry." Heidi Fink

"Methi is used as both a herb and a leafy vegetable; its seeds are an integral component of most curry powders. I would venture to say that fenugreek on its own, along with cumin, carries the bulk of the flavour that we Westerners think of as ‘curried’." Heidi Fink

Anyway I shall cross my fingers and try her recipe for methi murgh, which, I see, suggests soaking the leaves in salt water before use. Also mildly alarming.

Anyway I soldiered on in my search for alternative recipes and found that the Indians, use them often in conjunction with potatoes, dal, in flatbreads and fritters and in other stews. And then I found that fenugreek is big in Iran too and so I turned to my two Iranian cookbooks where I found a couple of tempting sounding dishes. The first is from Greg Malouf's book Saraban and is called Khoresht-e ghormeh sabzi which translates as Fresh herb stew with lamb and dried limes. Alas I can find no picture for this, but the recipe is available from the link above, and even Greg Malouf says it is is 'not the world's most beautiful dish', so just rely on his good taste when he says it is a 'stunner'. It also contains masses of other herbs - coriander, dill, chervil and parsley.

My other Persian book - Saffron Tales by Yasmin Khan has a recipe for a rather delectable looking onion soup called Eshkeneh - onion and fenugreek soup. You can find the list of ingredients at the above link but not the recipe itself. It's pretty simple though. Caramelise the onions, add cornflour paste and fry for a bit, add everything else except the eggs and cook for 10 minutes more. Then break the eggs into cups, slide into the soup and poach with the lid on until ready. Interesting concept - poached eggs in soup. You can find other recipes for this soup though, if you google with 'eshkeneh

And finally Yotam Ottolenghi. Yes he had to have something with fresh fenugreek didn't he? And it's prawns - Prawn and fenugreek stew, with tamarind and coriander, to be precise. And it does look good, though I, of course, won't be cooking it because David doesn't like prawns.