Dill (with recipe)

            Don’t imprison this delightful herb in the pickle jar! Its uses as a tasty aromatic and a medicinal of long standing are far too various to accept such limitation. For hundreds of years dill tea has been used as gentle sedative and as an aid to digestion. These attributes lend it power to calm nerves, hasten sleep, prevent nausea, increase the flow of a mother’s milk, stop an infant’s colic, even to chase away the hiccups. To make dill tea, steep ½ teaspoonful dill seed in a cup of hot water for 10 minutes; when administering to a baby, you can substitute milk for water.

            In cooking, dill is just as useful. Dill salt, made from ground dill seeds, is a tasty salt substitute. Use either the seeds or the fresh or dried leaves sprinkled over salads, in cooking cabbage, in fish sauces (try dill with drawn butter) and broth, or mixed with cream cheese as a sandwich spread. Cucumbers and dill are a natural twosome; try serving this cucumber-yogurt soup with dill for a summer lunch with some good homemade bread beneath the cool shadows of a comfortable tree.

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CUCUMBER-YOGURT SOUP WITH DILL

2 cucumbers

1 pint yogurt

Salt and pepper to taste

Dash of Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

¼ teaspoon ground cumin

1.      Peel and finely chop cucumbers, or put through a blender. Put into soup tureen and add other ingredients. Mix well. Serve very cold with some extra dill sprinkled on top.

2.      Serves four.

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SUMMER SQUASH RIBBON SALAD

5 tablespoons lemon juice

8 tablespoons olive oil

2-3 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped

Salt and pepper

1 shallot, finely chopped

2 medium yellow summer squash

2 medium zucchini

1.      Beat lemon juice in olive oil. Add dill, salt and pepper, and shallot. Trim ends of the squash and slice in half. Using a wide peeler, place peeler at angle at the end of squash and zucchini and peel lengthwise, creating long, thin ribbons. Toss squash and zucchini ribbons with dressing.

2.      Serves four to six.