Greek seasoning
Units
Temperature
Servings
Ingredients
Blend
- 20 g dried Greek oregano, the rubbed kind on the stalk if you can find it rounded
- 8 g dried mint, not optional; this is the flavour people cannot name rounded
- 6 g garlic granules rounded
- 5 g dried lemon zest, dried hard in a low oven, then crumbled; it must be completely dry rounded
- 5 g dried onion granules rounded
- 5 g coarse black pepper rounded
- 3 g dried thyme rounded
- 3 g dried dill rounded
Method
Method
- Dry the lemon zest properly first. Pare the zest off two lemons with a peeler, avoiding the white pith, and dry it in the oven at 80°C for about an hour until it snaps rather than bends. Crumble it fine. Any moisture at all and the jar will cake and then spoil.
- Rub the oregano through your palms as it goes in, which breaks the leaf up and releases the oil.
- Shake everything together and store sealed and dark.
Notes
- Oregano is more than a third of it. Greek cooking uses oregano at a volume that looks wrong written down. Trust it.
- Dried mint, not fresh, and not peppermint. Spearmint dried is what Greek and Turkish cooking uses. It is drier and hay-like rather than sweet, and it is the note that makes this taste Greek rather than generically herby.
- What to put it on. Chicken thighs with lemon and oil. Potatoes roasted in stock. Lamb. A block of feta with olive oil and nothing else. Whisked into yogurt for a dip.
- No salt again, for the same reason as the Italian blend.
Ingredient substitutions
- Greek oregano is stronger and more savoury than the Italian sort. Either works and Greek is worth seeking out; it is often sold on the stalk in bunches.
- Fresh lemon zest can go in at the point of cooking instead, and is better, but then the jar is not shelf stable and must live in the freezer.