Spices, tarragon, dried

French tarragon, the variety used in classic French cooking, has a smooth anise-like licorice note that softens when dried and crumbled into dishes. It is the backbone of bearnaise sauce and fines herbes, and shows up in tarragon chicken, mustard blends, vinegar infusions, and cream sauces for fish. Because drying concentrates its oils, a small pinch does the work of a much larger amount of fresh tarragon, so it is typically added early in cooking to soften its intensity, or stirred into a finished sauce a little at a time to taste. It also flavors tarragon vinegar, a staple of French vinaigrettes, and pairs naturally with shallots, white wine, and butter.

Keep dried tarragon in a sealed jar away from light and heat, where it holds its flavor for roughly a year before turning musty and flat, and give it a rub between your fingers before using to check it still smells of anise. Since a standard serving is just one teaspoon of leaves, the 295 calories per 100 grams listed on nutrition labels for the spice have almost no bearing on a home cook's plate, a pinch adds essentially no calories to a dish. What tarragon can do is layer in iron (179% DV per 100 g) and calcium (88% DV) alongside potassium and magnesium, figures worth knowing for a spice used often across many dishes and stirred generously into sauces built around eggs or poultry.