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Rue – Ruta graveolens – is one of those herbs that you’ll rarely find a use for.

It featured prominently in Middle Eastern and Roman cuisine in ancient times, but it is decidedly bitter.

It’s also phytophototoxic, which means if it rubs on your skin while you’re sweating in the sun, you’ll end up with an itchy tattoo

Good thing that it’s decorative, then…

“There’s fennel for you, and columbines:

there’s rue for you; and here’s some for me:

we may call it herb-grace o’ Sundays:

O you must wear your rue with a difference…”

Thus spoke Ophelia in Hamlet IV.5..

However, there IS a use for it

Green pea soup

Boil 300gm of deep frozen peas in 1 litre of vegetable and chicken stock (50/50) for 5
minutes. Strain and puree.

Fry a finely chopped onion in butter until soft, mix in 1 tbs. of wholemeal flour and add the stock.

Add the pea puree and 1 tsp. of brown sugar and simmer for a further 5 minutes.

Mix in 3 tbs. of creme fraiche and chopped mixed herbs (Lemon balm, salad burnet, chives, parsley, oregano, thyme, rue, sedum) and top with croutons.

Thus spoke jb from the kitchen

05 Jun This entry was published on 5 June, 2008 at 11:00. It’s filed under Culinary, Mainz and tagged Botanics. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.