1986 | No. 1
Revised May 2023

Chervil, Not Parsley
One of the Best and Least-Appreciated Herbs

 

By Edward Behr

Chervil’s tiny serrated leaflets, more feathery than parsley’s, are set on a triple stem, so they form a loose triangle, sometimes as big as a hand. The point of comparison is always parsley, and the two look similar, but the taste of parsley is bolder, sharply vegetal. Chervil is mild, fresh, green, delicately anise-tinged. It’s Anthriscus cerefolium — “leaves of joy” — the key component of fines herbes, although outside France almost no one has ever heard of it. I love eating in France, but long ago when I became conscious of just how often a sprig of chervil appeared as a garnish on a plate, I would taste it and usually find a stale refrigerator flavor or worse. (How could it be, I would ask myself, that the chef didn’t taste everything that went out on a plate?) Chervil holds up visually but not in flavor. It’s used only fresh; it’s not for cooking, or for cooking only a minute.

The relatives of chervil include parsley, dill, celery, fennel, coriander, cumin, carrots, and parsnips. There’s also turnip-rooted chervil, Chaerophyllum bulbosum, a vegetable that’s grown a little in France for its root; I’ve never tasted it, and not even the seed seems to be sold in North America. Chervil the herb is a biennial raised as an annual; it grows no taller than a foot (30 cm), except for its flowering stalk, which can reach two feet (60 cm). But when the tiny white flowers appear, the leaves are well past prime.

A rich, moist soil, a little shade — coolness — are what the plants like, but when I carefully supply all those, the leaves are still often bitter. In compensation, chervil is easy to grow indoors in a pot in a sunny window. It thrives even when sown during the shortest days of December. I use a wide pot and thin the plants to about 1½ inches (3 cm) apart. Window-sill chervil is the best I’ve grown.

For a garnish, pull the leaflets (pluches) from the stems and leave them whole. Chervil lifts up a salad. Its garden freshness complements delicate fish, seafood, eggs, carrots, and tomatoes, and it does no harm to almost anything. Easily made is a sauce of the shredded leaves (sliced, as chiffonade) combined with cream, salt, and pepper, for poultry. Together with small croûtons fried in butter at the last minute, chervil goes on potage Parmentier, a potato soup made with leeks and bouillon, and finished with butter and cream. It’s so out of date that I may never taste it if I don’t make it myself, which I never quite get around to doing.

Chervil adds something on its own, but the fines herbes combination — chervil, parsley, chives, and tarragon — is truly synergistic, optimal when chervil dominates: go light on the tarragon. Chop all the herbs small, if possible just before you use them. Fines herbes excel in scrambled eggs and omelettes, in a salad of grated raw carrots, in cream sauce for chicken, with steamed new potatoes in butter, in a green mayonnaise for cold lobster. Mix chervil alone with butter and shallots to make a beurre composé for grilled lean steak, squeezing on lemon.●

From issue 1

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