Lovage Salt

I don't know why you don't find lovage in the shops alongside the likes of parsley, mint and dill. It's very easy to grow, keeps well and has grown in Europe for centuries.

Some friends gave me a cutting of it a few years ago to go in the allotment, it took well and we now have a huge bush of it that requires no looking after at all. I hadn't really known it's flavour much until then as you rarely come across it.

The leaves are used like a herb and you can eat the root too, but I'm yet to dig it up, the seeds can be used too. It's flavour is similar to celery, celeriac and parsley, but I enjoy it more than all of them, slightly more pungent and complex. If you just eat a leave straight off the plant it is pretty intense, it works best in small doses to complement other things.

I love it in a tomato salad, in a leek and parsley soup, in a mayonnaise; it works really well with roast chicken which is how this salt came about, a simple idea but lovely sprinkled over moist roast chicken and it's buttery juices. I have chopped it up and mixed it with crème fraiche before and stuffed it under the skin of a chicken before it goes in the oven where the cream and flavours sink into the meat as it cooks.

I have used it in sweet stuff too, to flavour a panna cotta, and while going through a phase of candying everything last year I candied little sections of the stem. It's delicious as something sweet, a bit like angelica, lovely sweet fennel like flavours

This salt also works well with other herbs; like thyme, sage or dill. Simply chop the herbs finely and mix with an equal quantity of Maldon sea salt. Mix them together and I find it best to put it in the sun and let it dry out over a few days. The water will gradually evaporate and you are left with a delicious flavoured salt that can go on roast meats, salads, soups, bloody mary's, whatever you fancy...

If you want to try this with roast chicken, I would smear it all over with butter, squeeze over the juice of half a lemon, pop the lemon in the cavity and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 15 minutes very hot, about 220˚C, then 40 minutes at 190˚C for a relatively big chicken. When it is done leave it to rest for 15 minutes then carve it into the buttery juices in the tin and sprinkle with lovage salt.