A Daliance With Dill

It started innocently enough.

We were going to spend an evening with friends, and I needed to bring along a salad and dessert.  I had every intention of hitting the farmer’s market for salad things, but the day got away from me, and I ended up at the grocery store.  The one element of our diet that I really prefer to purchase organically is greens- so I spent some time looking over the rather impressive selection of salad greens.

Then I saw it.  Fresh Herb Salad.  Huh.  I picked up the box and looked it over.  The greens looked fresh and delicious, and the box indicated that there could be an assortment of parsley, cilantro and dill included in the salad.  I thought the dill was strange, but I love parsley and cilantro, and knew our friends did too, so the salad went home with me.

As I assembled the salad, I opened up the greens to add them in.  I kind of picked through a little to see what was there, and didn’t actually see any parsley or cilantro.  But I did see dill.  I actually picked out the pieces of dill at first, because they were rather large and had stems, and I knew we wouldn’t want to be eating dill stems.  So I picked off the light and feathery dill fronds and threw them in the salad, leaving the tough stems to the compost bin.

I really didn’t expect much from this salad, but later on, one bite in, lightly coated with ranch dressing, I realized this dill addition was a revelation.   Our friend said as much as well.  That fresh dill completely elevated this salad to something really, really special.   Where I had thought that perhaps the salad was going to end up tasting like pickles had been added, it really didn’t.  That dill just added a completely new and unexpected flavor that kept me going back to the salad bowl for more.

And in fact, ever since I bought that first box of greens, I’ve been a little obsessed with it.  I’m addicted to the stuff.   It doesn’t seem to matter what salad dressings I use, it doesn’t matter what the other veg in the salad is, I could sit down with the box of salad and a bit of dressing and be completely content and happy.

I didn’t plant any dill this year in the garden.   My herbs are the one area of the garden doing fairly well, but I didn’t plant dill because I didn’t expect that I’d be making pickles this year- and that’s one of the few things I knew to do with dill.  I’ve added a small touch of fresh dill to fish dishes before, and to homemade salad dressings- but adding handfuls of the actual fronds to a bowl of lettuce?  It never occurred to me.

Dill might just be the new parsley.   As I’m planning the herb garden for next year, you can be assured that there will be plenty of dill.   And I’m also looking forward to seeing what else this exceptional herb can do.