Beyond scent

By Tom Harte

Some ingredients you can add to recipes with abandon. For example, in my experience, it seldom hurts to add a little more cream or butter, or a lot more chocolate chips, to whatever you're making.

This is not always the case, and nowhere is it less so than when cooking with herbs, especially lavender. As the world-renowned culinary chemist, Harold McGee, notes, the aroma of lavender is more familiar in soaps and candles than in foods. Thus, if you're not careful to judiciously add the right amount, that's what your food will end up tasting like.

But it's worth experimenting to achieve the right balance, because cooking with lavender, what the French call "blue gold," can add elegance and sophistication to a dish and, with a little imagination, make you feel like you're driving a convertible -- top down, of course -- through the south of France. No wonder Shirley Corriher, another prize-winning culinary chemist, observes, "Cooking with lavender has always held a certain mystique ... some secret alchemy."

Even before people thought of putting it in food, lavender was casting its spell. It has been cultivated since the beginning of recorded time. According to some scholars, lavender oil is what Mary used on Jesus both as an infant and at his crucifixion.

Lavender-infused cream is poured into molds and then chilled to make Panna Cotta, a silky custard that is a perfect foil for the flavor of lavender.TOM HARTE

Some narratives claim Adam and Eve took lavender with them when they left the Garden of Eden as a form of protection. (Fortunately for them they didn't wear it. Unlike fig leaves, lavender bushes have spikes.) Legend also maintains that lavender originally had no scent until after Mary laid her baby's swaddling clothes on a lavender bush to dry.

Archaeologists know the Egyptians used lavender as part of their mummification process. King Tut's tomb was filled with lavender, and when it was finally opened in 1922 the plant's aroma was still detectable.

Lavender was one of Cleopatra's secret weapons for seduction. Hundreds of years later, prostitutes were still using the same trick to pick up tricks. The Greeks and Romans employed lavender as a sort of precursor to Valium. The herb was used as an antiseptic in England, right up until the first World War. (The name comes from the Latin root "lavare," meaning to wash.) Charles VI of France insisted, not incorrectly, that lavender-filled pillows helped him get a good night's sleep.

Queen Elizabeth I of England used lavender to treat her migraine headaches. She even appointed a Purveyor of Lavender Essence to the Queen.

Besides the many non-edible uses for lavender, it also shines when used in cooking. (Make sure that you get culinary, not ornamental, lavender for this purpose.) It goes well with a wide range of foods, both sweet and savory, including chocolate. The only thing you have to worry about is using too much, lest, as food journalist Mark Bittman advises, it punches you in the nose.

The best way to introduce the flavor of lavender into a dish is to infuse it into other ingredients, as is being done here with heavy cream, a first step in making lavender panna cotta.TOM HARTE ~ photos@semissourian.com

The best way to avoid this problem is to infuse the herb into other ingredients, like cream, olive oil or sugar, that will be added to a recipe rather than adding it directly to a dish.

Once you get the hang of it, you'll probably agree with Kathy Gehrt, master of a website on the subject, that lavender is so attractive and pleasing it can well be regarded as the homecoming queen of herbs.

Honey Lavender Panna Cotta

Panna Cotta, Italian for cooked cream, is a delicate, silky custard whose otherwise neutral flavor is a perfect showcase for lavender. This recipe is adapted from Faith Durand, editor of the cooking site "The Kitchn."

A field of lavender, what the French call Blue Gold, growing in the Provence region of France where the herb is used to enhance the flavor of a wide variety of foods ranging from savory to sweet.TOM HARTE

• 1 ½ teaspoons powdered, unflavored gelatin
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 1 cup cream
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 teaspoons dried lavender buds
• 1 cup whole milk

Sprinkle gelatin over water and let stand for five minutes until softened. Combine cream and honey, add lavender, and heat until slightly simmering. Remove from heat and let steep for five minutes. Whisk mixture to make sure all ingredients are well incorporated, then strain. Whisk in softened gelatin to evenly distribute, then whisk in milk. Pour mixture into four 5-ounce ramekins that have been sprayed with cooking spray and refrigerate for four hours until set.

Unmold and serve, garnished with strawberries or other fruit.