Its culinary uses are limited, but do make use of its cucumber flavor
and cooling effect, especially in iced drinks. Float its
brilliant blue flowers in summer beverages or candy them for dessert
trimmings. Gather borage blossoms on a clear summer day; dip in
slightly beaten egg white, then sugar and allow to dry. Store in
a dry place, well covered to keep out any humidity. Use to
decorate cake, cookies & other confections. The tender, young,
hairless leaves and stems are used for the cool, cucumber flavor they
impart when chopped and added to salads, spreads, and drinks.
The leaves are used raw, steamed, or sautéed like spinach. You
can eat the stems, too; peel, chop and use them like celery.
Cooked, the leaves lose their fuzziness and resemble a dark, green
spinach. Young, immature rosettes of leaves are best for
uncooked use. Dry leaves for tea. Both dried and fresh
leaves are used to flavor soups and stews. When drying borage,
remove leaves from the succulent stem. Borage tends to turn brown or
black without good air circulation.
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DID YOU KNOW?
-Borage
leaves have a crisp cucumber taste that is lost when dried
-The
Welch called borage ‘llanwenlys’, meaning herb of gladness.
-Drawings of borage blossoms decorated page borders of ancient
Books of Hours.
-The
young tops of borage were sometimes boiled as a pot-herb.
-Borage
is said to strengthen the resistance of nearby plants to insects
and disease.
-Borage
has the same digested flavor as cucumbers without the digestive
upset that vegetable sometimes causes.
-Sometime silica in the leaves can irritate the skin even when
dry. |
Borage blends well with dill, mint and garlic. The leaves and
stems enhance cheese, fish, poultry, most vegetables, green salads,
iced beverages, pickles and salad dressings. The best way to
store for long-term use is as a flavored vinegar. In some parts
of France, the blossoms are cooked as fritters.
As a good cleanser for oily skin, combine a borage infusion with milk,
buttermilk or yogurt. It is in the Claret Cup that borage is
pre-eminent. To quote Mrs. Seely’s Cookbook published in 1902:
“the borage should not be allowed to remain in the cup, but it will
impart an aroma that nothing else can ...a sprig of borage added just
before serving....” Adelma Simmons states emphatically that borage is
the chief flavor of the Claret Bowl, and goes on to give a recipe for
a pretty punch with a cool, cucumber taste.
Claret Bowl: one stalk borage - stem, leaves and blossoms or twelve
leaves and blossoms - for garnish; one gallon claret or dry, red table
wine; juice of three limes; one cup granulated sugar; one sliced lime
for garnish. In a large open-mouthed jug, steep borage in wine, lime
juice and sugar at room temperature for at least three hours before
serving. Of, if preferred, in a refrigerator for twenty-four
hours. At serving time, pour wine mixture over a block of ice in
a punch-bowl. Decorate with the lime slices, fress blossoms and
leaves. Makes thirty-six punch-cup servings.
One last oddity about borage: throw its leaves on the dying barbeque
coals for a small firecracker display. Sparks and pops will
result, due to the nitrate of potash in borage!
