Content
- Conserve woodruff properly
- Recognize woodruff and dose correctly
- Woodruff dry or freeze
- The preparation of woodruff syrup
- Tips & Tricks
Conserve woodruff properly
As a spring messenger as well as the wild garlic is considered the woodruff, when he invites from March and April in the woods to collect. Properly preserved, it can also be used year-round as a medicinal and aromatic herb in the kitchen.
Recognize woodruff and dose correctly
The easiest way to see the maximum 30 centimeters high woodruff in the wild during the flowering season in April and May, when the filigree white flower on the upper shoot tips of the woodruff blooms. Actually, it is almost too late for a harvest, because typically the plant is cut for drinks like the Maibowle before flowering. In principle, a later harvest is still possible, but then the dosage in the kitchen must be much more economical to avert toxic effects by the much more contained from the bloom coumarin. There are the following options for keeping the woodruff for year-round use:
Woodruff dry or freeze
When woodruff is dried or frozen, cleavage of the contained coumarin likewise occurs, which provides for an even better development of the aroma in food and drinks. For the freezing usually takes a period of about one hour. You can also leave the leaves to wither for a few hours or a night before letting them into liquid for fresh use. If you want to conserve the woodruff for longer, you can put the whole bundles or individual leaves into the freezer portioned. When drying, you should ensure good ventilation and a repeated shaking of the bundles, so that all places can dry equally well and no leaves stick together.
The preparation of woodruff syrup
A delicious refreshment with Waldmeister flavor can be prepared year round from Waldmeister syrup. For this, allow the washed and shaken woodruff bundles to wither overnight before allowing them to soak in a boiled sugar solution with lemon juice for a few hours. Then squeeze the leaves well and boil the sugar solution again before bottling them.
Tips & Tricks
Even if you do not want to use woodruff in the kitchen, it is an easy-care ground cover in shady places in the garden and provides in bunches hung up for a pleasant smell in the house.
WK