Herbs

This is the category for leafy culinary herbs, dried whole or as leaf rather than milled to a powder, so they hold on to more of the oil that carries their flavour. Some — oregano, thyme, sage — genuinely work as well or better dried than fresh, since drying concentrates their flavour and they're built to survive slow cooking. Others, like basil and mint, are more of a convenient store-cupboard stand-in for the fresh leaf. Check each page for the best way to use it: some want crushing in at the start of cooking, others are better added at the end or steeped as a tea.