Fresh Bay Leaves: Don’t Use Sparingly

If you grow your own herbs, you are aware that (almost) everything has a season (unless you live in Florida, but even then). But if you grow an evergreen bay tree, you will have learned that fresh bay leaves are a year-round source of fragrance and especially welcome in the months when other herbs must be bought. Bay trees are happy indoors, and I think they may be the perfect houseplant.

I grow my own bay tree in Brooklyn, and the green leaves have become a winter and cold-season staple herb. Fresh bay leaves bear no resemblance—flavor-wise—to the sad, dried version of the herb. They are immensely versatile and can be used in quantity. In fact, I use so many that I recently bought a second tree, as backup.

Here are three simple ways to enjoy fresh bay leaves in quantity. You could even prepare all of these dishes at once for a bay leaf-centric dinner: appetizer, entrée, and dessert.

Photography by Marie Viljoen.

Growing up, I associated bay leaves exclusively with slow-cooked comfort food. And it was always a single leaf that was expected to do all the work of perfuming an entire dish, where meat, potatoes, and carrots were almost always involved. The leaf’s task complete, it would be fished out ceremoniously for me for me to lick clean. Decades later, I deploy bay leaves in sheafs rather than solo.

Several trees with aromatic leaves are referred to as bay; the tree in question is Laurus nobilis, the Mediterranean native. It is hardy from USDA growing zones 8b to 10. Petite, baby trees can be bought online and shipped to your door, but for instant gratification wait for warmer months to purchase the larger trees that local nurseries often stock. (A bay tree in a 3.5-inch pot is $14 from Companion Plants Ohio.) To learn more about how to grow a bay tree (which may be the perfect houseplant), visit our previous article: The Indoor Bay Tree.

You do not have to grow your own bay leaves, of course. They are often available to buy fresh. If you have bought a pack, soak them in water for an hour and then keep them covered or wrapped in the fridge to extend their life.

Roasted Strawberries with Bay Leaves

Even though they look and often smell beautiful, many out-of-season strawberries are bland and disquietingly crisp. But waiting for local strawberry season to arrive when buds are already bursting into bloom is not easy. Roasting store-bought berries brings out their aroma and flavor.

As strawberries roast slowly, their juices mingle with the fresh bay leaves, coaxing out their perfume. A little balsamic vinegar adds a necessary edge of acid.

• 2 lbs strawberries, washed and halved (or quartered, if large)
• 20 bay leaves
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil

Pre-heat the oven to 350°F.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Spread the bay leaves across the parchment. Lay the strawberries on the bay leaves and then distribute the sugar, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil evenly across the berries. Slide into the oven for 45 minutes, checking on the strawberries at the 30-minute mark to baste them with the exuded juices.

When they are done, scoop the fruit off the bay leaves (discard the leaves) and serve, along with the poured-off juices. The strawberries can be eaten at once, warm, or kept in the fridge for up to three days.

Roasted strawberries can be eaten:

• cold, with yogurt, for breakfast or lunch
• as a granita, after puréeing and freezing (remove the bay leaves, first!)
• warm, with cream or as a topping for ice cream
• as a filling inside or atop a milk sponge cake
• as a baked-in topping for focaccia
• as a side, with French toast
• as a savory salad, with burrata, radicchio leaves, and a flurry of black pepper.

Hasselback Potatoes with Bay Leaves

For bay leaf Hasselback potatoes, use your favorite Hasselback recipe and simply add a fresh bay leaf at very fourth slice, pushing it in deeply. The leaf protected inside the potato stays green and perfumed, while the exposed part will become crisp. Halfway through baking baste the potatoes with the fat of your choice, making sure it runs into all the slices. Of course you don’t eat the bay leaves themselves, just push them aside as you dig in.

Roasted Pears with Bay Leaves

This simple recipe for roast pears yields a dessert that is a startlingly effective combination of spartan with svelte.

Pears with Fresh Bay Leaves and Calvados

Bosc pears are a handsome winter fruit that’s still in season in early spring, months before the first local fruit arrives at greenmarkets. Halved and gently roasted with Calvados (a French brandy made from pear or apple cider) and fresh bay leaves, these flavors mingle to create a dessert whose delicacy belies its rustic appearance. They can be eaten without embellishment, but the addition of mascarpone and little dice of candied yuzu peel (or other candied citrus peel) creates a luxe dessert.

• 4 Bosc pears, washed but not peeled
• 10 fresh bay leaves
• 2 – 3 Tablespoons Calvados
• 2 Tablespoons sugar

Filling (optional)

• 4 Tablespoons mascarpone
• 2 Tablespoons candied citrus peel

Pre-heat the oven to 350°F.

Halve and core the pears and cut out the fibers that run to the stalk. Arrange the bay leaves in a skillet or oven proof dish. Lay the pears halves on the bay leaves (if the fruit tilts wildly, cut a small slice off the rounded side to allow them to sit flat—this will keep the liquor in their cavities).

Fill each cavity with the Calvados, if using. The amount of liquor will depend on the size of the pears and the depth of your excavation. Sprinkle the sugar evenly across each pear. Add 1 cup of water to the skillet or dish. Roast for 45 minutes. Remove from the oven, and baste the pears with the liquid in the pan (if it is very syrupy, add a splash more water). Roast for another 45 minutes, until the pears are browning at the edges, tender when pierced with skewer. Serve warm.

See also:

• Shatta: A Taste of the Eastern Mediterranean
• Bitter Melon: Like a Cucumber With Attitude
• Citrus Peels: How to Waste Nothing and Taste Everything