I think you are off-base on tarragon. Dried tarragon has little flavour but
freezing it works, and so does making tarragon vinegar. As for your remark
about cultivars of tarragon, I understand that French tarragon doesn't set
seed, so all the tarragon plants in the world are clones, and therefore the
same strain.

(Russian tarragon is a different herb, inferior in for cuisinary use.)

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...

"Taylors in Japan" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the advice. I dried the parsley last night to drain any
excess
water from cleaning--the cold dry climate here in Japan this time of
year
takes care of that nicely. I just finished putting it in the freezer.

I have another question: what herbs are best frozen and what are best
dried?


The subtle herbs like parsley, chervil etc don't dry well. Coriander
(cilantro) leaf is not what I would call subtle when fresh but it
doesn't dry well either.

The stronger herbs: tarragon, basil, oregano etc dry well but often the
character changes as they dry. Depending on the situation this change
may be important to you or not. For some purposes the fresh form is
better (even essential) for other purposes the dry form is.

For example to make pesto, dried basil just doesn't work at all. To
make bernaise sauce fresh tarragon may just as good as dried, but in
cases where you cannot come by one of the more pungent cultivars (or it
is the wrong season) the dried form may be better as the commercial
growers use such cultivars and harvest them when they are at their peak
of pungency.

The reason for these differences is in the essential (volatile) oils
that are lost or changed during the drying process. Different plants
have different oils ( that's why they taste different - duh!) and some
survive the process and others don't.

As for the effect of freezing I cannot say as much but all other things
being equal you will lose less essential oils (and hence flavour) during
freezing than during drying. Freezing will damage the cells and so
change the texture (so does drying of course) but as herbs are often
chopped/ground up this doen't matter so much unless you require the lush
greeness of a fresh basil leaf on your Italian cheese salad.

David