After the very bad weather that prevailed all over Mauritius for the whole month of January, first with the non-stop daily heavy rains then followed by the tropical cyclone bringing again more rains flooding everywhere, these days it is rare to see some nice green herbs on the market stalls...
Yes my friends, after such a bad weather , nearly all vegetables and herbs plantations of the island have been affected...Since some days now, the prices of all vegetables and little herbs that you find are costing 5 to 10 times more than one month back!!!
Mint is actually one of my favorite herbs to use in my cuisine...the one I am finding these days on the market stalls are just not of good quality!
Thankfully I have my brother in law who is in the plantation field, who got some nice ones standing strong!
So these days, whenever I receive some fresh mint from him, the first thing I do is to plan for the future days...keep that green beauty the longer time possible...
One effective way for me to achieve this is to fry them in olive oil until crispy...
I then drained the excessive oil and reserve them both!
One tip though, if you want to try same please make sure to not overheat your olive oil, the maximum temperature for safe olive oil frying is to be always below 180 degrees celcius.
As from 184 degrees - 200 degrees, olive oil starts to smoke and normally this is not good thing to do!
Once maximum oil is drained from the leaves, reserve the crispy leaves in an airtight container and keep in a cool and dry place until time for you to use them!
The olive oil in which you fried the leaves will be super flavorful + so green in color...use it on your salad once it's cooled down or even on your pizzas!
You can actually make this with any type of herbs you wish and the results are always amazing!
These crispy green herbs goes in a lot of different dishes of my bistro...come visit me one day to enjoy the food I prepare together with my family!
How you do to preserve your herbs when times are hard like mine!?
I would love to hear from you and please do share any techniques that can be helpful for me and everyone reading my blog!
