Bay leaves are a wonderful addition to any soup, sauce, stew or casserole. They are mainly used dry and are just tossed into the pot of food one is cooking. When they are allowed to impart their rich and aromatic flavor through baking, simmering, etc., your palette will reap the rewards.
The bay leaf that we use in cooking is actually the dried leaf of the Bay Laurel tree (Laurus Nobililis). This is why bay leaves can also be known as sweet bay, sweet laurel, laurel leaf or bay laurel. Normally these leaves are used whole when cooking. Bay leaves can be found in a crushed form. However, the bay leaf in its crushed form are often used in a muslin bag or tea infuser—-since you’d want to remove them. Ground bay laurel may be substituted for whole leaves, and does not need to be removed, but it is much stronger due to the increased surface area and in some dishes the texture may not be desirable. The whole leaves are much easier for family dinners. They can be removed whole without any disposition to the cook.
If whole bay leaves are crushed while baking or cooking spaghetti sauces, etc. those you are serving may find small pieces of bay leaves in their plates that are hard to chew and/or swallow. Pieces of the bay leaf can be caught in your throat if they break off in large bits. Another substitute is bay leaf powder which adds the flavor of the bay leaf without having to be removed from the finished recipe.
Bay leaves are freshly picked from trees. They are laid out to dry and then stored in the pantry when they are ready to use. In the Mediterranean cuisine, bay leaves are often added to dishes. Thus, a bag of dried fresh bay leaves is always found in my pantry (Litsa’s) at home.
Do you use bay leaves in your recipes?
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