Even the words ‘lemon verbena’ make me happy. It would be my desert island herb just for the scent it leaves on my hands every day from mid spring into autumn, but it is so good in the kitchen too. If it is a stranger to you, the scent and flavour are like lemons but full of sherbet and zest. It is lemon balm for people who like themselves.
Buy two plants, one to keep easily accessible by the kitchen door, and another where you can rub the leaves as you leave the house. Come to think of it, a third to grow where you like to lie when it’s sunny. Too much is still too little.
It’s so easy to look after: give it sun, shelter, a fertile, well drained soil and it will be happy. If you live with harsh winters, you might want to grow it in a container to bring undercover through the coldest months, but for most of the UK it will be fine grown in a bed relatively near the house for the degree of frost protection it lends. Water very sparingly over winter, as it’s easier to kill with love than neglect. Every spring you will think you’ve killed it anyway, but it is just late to come back into leaf. Whatever you do, don’t prune the leafless, woody framework back before April: let the weakest growth take the hit from the frosts, rather than expose new cuts to the cold.
As with bay, lemon verbena is a leaf to infuse rather than eat. Make a sugar syrup (try 300g sugar dissolved in 250g boiling water) and throw in a handful of leaves, removing them when the flavour is an intensity to your liking; cast leaves into simmering milk for a very special custard or rice pudding. Line a buttered cake tin with the leaves before the batter is poured in and the cake will be perfumed and flavoured with its magnificence. It is perhaps the easiest herb to dry: leave cut stems on the window sill for a few days and the leaves will desiccate to an impersonation that still possesses 95% of that zing. Swizz a few with sugar in a coffee/spice grinder for lemon verbena sugar, which is somehow even better than it sounds. And if you are in barbecuing mood, try the branches as skewers. I could go on.
And here’s a recipe for you - make it once and I promise it’ll be a favourite.
Limoncello
If you have been to southern Italy, you may have come enchanted with limoncello, a delightfully enlivening liqueur, heavy with lemons, usually served cold as divorce, either side of a meal. You may also have returned home, enthusiastically bought a bottle to relive those hot days away and found supermarket limoncello closer to toilet cleaner than the real deal. This is the antidote. You can use gin instead of vodka, but why would you: the gin will be drunk relatively quickly, while everyone has a bottle of vodka in the cupboard purchased some years ago for reasons unknown. And if you are looking for lemongrass, it’ll be in the door of the fridge, underneath that pricey half finished goat’s cheese you haven’t got round to throwing out yet.
This is based on a recipe in my book Herb/a cook’s companion, published last year, and I tweak this recipe constantly - sometimes lemons and limes, occasionally less/more vodka to sugar syrup etc etc - so do feel free to embellish as you fancy.
Enjoy solo and cold as a digestivo or (if you intend to sleep where you are sat) diluted with sparkling wine.
Makes 1 litre
600ml vodka
2 lemongrass, semi-lightly bashed with a rolling pin
zest from 3 unwaxed lemons
3 good sprigs of lemon verbena
500g white sugar
Pour the vodka into a 1 litre jar, add the zest, lemongrass and stir well. Leave for a week to infuse. In a large pan over a moderate heat, add the sugar to 450ml of water, stirring until it is dissolved. Turn off the heat and allow to cool to cool for 5 minutes. Add the lemon verbena to the vodka, and pour in as much of the warm syrup as will fill the jar. Once cool, place in the fridge. It will be bright and lively, mellowing and deepening in flavour over time: both are excellent. You can sieve out the flavours anytime once you like the strength, and bottle it, or leave it in the jar if you prefer.
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