The Cilantro Quandary

Giant Pile of Cilantro!

Probably somewhere (Mexico?) the salsa ingredients Tomato, Onion, Hot Peppers, and Cilantro ALL GROW AT THE SAME TIME. You know, so you can MAKE SALSA by using the ingredients in your own garden. In our wacky modern age, Texans get the ingredients for salsa at the HEB and give nary a thought to it, because most people are completely oblivious to what grows where when.

But in actuality, in Central Texas, hot peppers and tomatoes ripen in the “warm season” (May-November) and onions and cilantro can only be grown in the “cool season” (November-March) Because of this, it is not possible to make fresh salsa from your own garden, except for like ONE DAY in April.

Now, onions can be dried and stored, so they aren’t as problematic in a temporal sense; but cilantro cannot be dried, it must be fresh or it loses its flavor. How Can One Possibly Solve this Quandary?

What you do is, you pick all the leaves off the stems. It is not hard and doesn't take all that long either. This is a restaurant skill that you learn like the FIRST WEEK you work in a kitchen, it is really quite simple.

The solution I have come to is this: I pick the cilantro at the peak of it’s perfection (it goes to seed quickly) and de-stem and FREEZE it. This is the G*R*E*A*T*E*S*T solution ever, because then you have “fresh” homegrown organic Cilantro for all your Mexican, Indian and Thai dishes. (The frozen cilantro leaves must be used in cooked or “cooked-ish” preparations like salsa, soups and curry; it won’t work in Thai Beef Salad or any dish where it absolutely HAS TO be raw.)

Here I have put the leaves into ONE freezer bag, and the STEMS into another, for the making of vegetable stock

I always put in into a gallon sized zippy bag, in a thinnish layer. That way when you need some, you can just break off a piece, like breaking off a piece of Peanut Brittle.

It stays a nice, bright green for a long time, too.