Thursday, September 12, 2013

Santolina - The olive herb


I found this little beauty a few weeks ago; I'd never heard of it before this herb caught my eye at Plants Plus. After I crushed the leaves between my fingers and had a whiff, I had to have it.



It's Santolina rosmarinifolia, the olive herb. It really smells and has the flavour of olives.


I made foccacia last week and used this chopped up on top before I baked it. I chopped it up with parsley and basil mint and put it in the pasta sauce on Tuesday. 

It would probably be awesome in a salad dressing too, used to flavour meats or sprinkled atop a pizza. Saves the fussy kids screwing their noses up and picking off the black bits of olive, what they can't see won't hurt them.

It is a welcome and useful new herb in my garden. In late Summer it comes out with small yellow button flowers, and grows up to 50 cm high.


10 comments:

  1. I have never heard of this herb but I will be keeping an eye out for it now!

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    1. The label caught my attention, I was a little bit excited, and amazed. Who knew there was such a herb?! Awesome :)

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  2. Wow, I never knew there was an olive herb!

    Cheers,
    Lynda.

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  3. Wow! There's a herb garden in this park we go to sometimes and the leaves smell of EVERYTHING! It's amazing what's out there when you go looking.

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  4. I'll have to look out for this ... sounds like something Mr Sparky would love. I am not an olive fan myself but he sure is.

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  5. I learn something new every time I read your blog - love it.

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  6. How exciting - always so much fun finding new plants! I hadn't heard of this one myself, but I showed it to my partner (the real green thumb in our house) and he said he knew it but had never used it in cooking before. We're keen to give it a try though!

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  7. Sounds lovely must look out for it - thanks for sharing x

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  8. I have it at home and tried raw but was not what i expected.
    Maybe cooking it its better.
    But it really smells of black olives and its beautiful

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