Rosemary

Know this

Rosemary is a shrub, not a leafy herb, and it behaves like one: the flavor lives in oil inside the needles and it comes out with heat and fat, not with a knife. Buy sprigs that are deep green and bend without snapping, with no black tips and a hit of pine the moment you rub one. Strip the needles by pinching the tip and pulling backward against the grain, and keep the bare stems; they are skewers for the grill and a rack for a roast. It wraps in a damp towel in the fridge for two weeks, or stands in a glass of water on the counter like flowers. Chef secret: drop whole sprigs into the oil or butter before anything else goes in the pan, let them sizzle a minute, then pull them. All of the flavor, none of the needles in your teeth, and the same move makes a rosemary oil for the table.

Cook

Whole sprigs under a roast or in the roasting fat for potatoes, chopped as fine as you can for anything with flour in it, and with a light hand, because past a point it tastes like a cough drop. A sweet shortbread with rosemary in the dough is the one that surprises people, and it is coming next.

Season

Year-round from the shop, but it is a cold-weather herb in the kitchen, because that is when the roasts come out. In the ground it shrugs off frost down to about 10°F in a sunny, well-drained spot, so a plant by the back door keeps giving all winter in most of the country.

Best pairings

Lamb · Potato · Garlic · Lemon · Olive oil · Honey

Also worth trying: white beans, pork, chicken, mushroom, orange, brown butter, shortbread, walnut.

Recommended wine