Gadenin日本語Get the appDried really is better than fresh
With most herbs, drying is a compromise you accept in order to have them in winter. Bay is the exception. A freshly picked bay leaf is noticeably bitter, with a sharp, almost medicinal edge that carries into a dish and does not cook out. A few weeks of drying breaks that harshness down and leaves the warm, sweet, faintly clove-like aroma that bay is actually wanted for.
This is why a leaf straight off your own plant can taste worse than one out of a jar, and why people conclude their tree is somehow the wrong sort. It is not. It simply has not been dried. Pick your leaves, dry them properly, and give them two or three weeks before judging.
If you must use a leaf fresh, use one and not two, and take it out of the pot earlier than a recipe suggests. Older leaves, the dark leathery ones from last year's growth or before, are less bitter fresh than this year's soft bright leaves.
When and what to pick
You can take bay leaves in any month, which is one of its great advantages as an evergreen. But the leaves are not all equal. Aromatic oil content is highest in mature leaves that have had a full season to build up, and lowest in the soft new growth that appears in spring.
The best picking is therefore mature leaves at least a year old, taken in late summer or early autumn after a hot dry spell and before the plant has to face winter. They are thick, leathery, deep green and snap rather than fold. Leaves picked in a wet week hold more water, take longer to dry and are more likely to go moldy in the process.
Never strip more than a fifth of the foliage from a plant at once, and never take everything from one side. Bay grows slowly and a heavy strip takes two seasons to fill back in. If you need a large batch for drying, take it as part of the annual shaping cut rather than as a separate raid on the plant.
| Leaf type | How it looks | Best use |
|---|---|---|
| This year's spring growth | Bright light green, soft, folds | Leave it on the plant to mature |
| Last year's leaves | Deep green, leathery, snaps | The main crop for drying |
| Old inner leaves | Dark, dull, sometimes marked | Usable but weaker; strip when thinning |
| Leaves under sooty mold | Black sticky film on the surface | Do not use; wash and treat the plant |
| Leaves curled at the edge | Thickened rolled margin | Bay sucker damage, discard |
How to pick without ruining the shape
A clipped bay is a piece of garden architecture, and it is easy to spoil in five minutes of picking for the kitchen. The problem is that you naturally reach for the biggest, best leaves, which are on the outside of the plant where they show.
Pick from the inside and the back instead. Reach in through the outer shell, take leaves from the shaded interior and from the side of the plant that faces the wall, and the outline stays perfect. Take single leaves at the base of the leaf stalk rather than pulling, which tears a strip of bark down the stem and leaves a scar that never closes.
- Take single leaves, not shoot tips Pinch or snip each leaf at the very base of its stalk. Cutting off a whole shoot tip to get five leaves removes the growing point and leaves a stub that browns.
- Work from the inside out Start with the leaves you cannot see from the front of the plant. On a formal ball or standard this alone keeps the shape intact through a whole year of kitchen picking.
- Combine the big harvest with the annual clip When you shape the plant in mid summer, strip the leaves from the trimmings on a sheet indoors. One shaping session yields more than a year of cooking needs.
- Leave the terminal buds alone The buds at the tips of the leading shoots are what fill the plant out. Picking around them costs you nothing and keeps the plant growing.
Drying and storing
Bay leaves are thick and dry slowly, which works in your favor: there is no rush and no need for heat. Heat above about 100F (38C) drives off the aromatic oils you are trying to keep, so an oven, an airing cupboard right next to a hot tank, or a sunny windowsill all produce pale, papery, flavorless leaves.
The method that works is a single layer in a dry, dark, airy room at ordinary room temperature, turned every few days. Depending on humidity this takes ten days to three weeks. The leaves are ready when they snap cleanly instead of bending, and have gone from glossy green to a matt olive.
Some cooks press the leaves flat between sheets of paper under a weight while they dry, which keeps them from curling and makes them stack neatly in a jar. It makes no difference to the flavor but it is worth doing for a gift jar.
| Stage | Conditions | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Drying | Single layer, dark, airy, room temperature | Ten days to three weeks |
| Mellowing | Sealed jar, dark cupboard | Two to three weeks before best flavor |
| Peak flavor | Airtight glass, whole leaves, dark | Up to twelve months |
| Past its best | Crumbles to dust, faint smell when snapped | Compost it and dry a fresh batch |
Store whole leaves, never crushed or ground. The aromatic oil sits in the leaf tissue and escapes within weeks once the leaf is broken up. Crumble a leaf into the pan at the moment you use it, not into the jar.
Keep a note of each batch
Write the date on the jar when you seal it, and note the date you picked it as well as the date it finished drying. Bay keeps its flavor for about a year and then fades gradually rather than suddenly, so without a date you will go on using a jar that stopped doing anything six months ago.
It is also worth recording how much you picked and from which plant or which side, because bay refills so slowly that you can easily take from the same shoulder of the plant two years running and end up with a lopsided bush. One line a year is enough: the date of the big pick, roughly how many leaves, and which side you took them from.