We often receive enquiries from customers with respect to allergens that may be in various herbs and spices. The most common requests are with respect to nuts and gluten. Nuts At Herbie’s Spices we maintain a strict regime of quarantining our nut products (hazelnuts and pistachio nuts) and sesame seeds, so they do not come into contact with other spices. We also thoroughly clean
What is Herbies? Herbie’s Spices fills a need in the community of cooks and food lovers for one central place to access all those hard-to-find herbs and spices. They also stock the easy-to-find ones, of the freshest and best quality, so that you can stock up on all your spices and herbs in one stop. The blends and spice mixes made at Herbie’s Spices
Spice Discovery Tour We trust that everyone enjoyed the annual Christmas eating extravaganza – we certainly did, with beautifully seasoned vegetables and a galantine of turkey rubbed well with Crusting Mix before it was roasted in our brick oven. It was followed, naturally, by a traditional pudding enhanced with Mixed Spice and Quatre Epices (sweet). Now the diet begins but it’s hard to diet
Argan Oil Our trip to Morocco, covered pretty well in the last Newsletter, had one further result that we can now announce. There is a tree native to Morocco known as the Argan tree, which bears a fruit that looks something like a plum. The seed of this fruit has an oil-rich kernel, which is roasted, ground and hand-kneaded to release the most wonderfully
Spring has arrived and we look forward to the joys of picnics, al freso dining, and the approaching summer, enhanced by flavours from around the world. We are lucky to be part of an adventurous food culture where we’re willing to try anything. On our recent trip to Morocco, we ate – exclusively – Moroccan food. Delicious certainly, but seven days a week, 52
Ockkah Shortbread Anzac Day always brings on patriotic feelings and pride in our Australian-ness. As we now have a Scottish son-in-law, we tinged our Anzac cooking to reflect our extended family, so instead of baking Anzac biscuits this year, we made some Scottish shortbread with Ockkah added, to rave reviews from everyone who tasted it. Here’s the recipe: OCKKAH SHORTBREAD Makes Approximately 25 125g butter,
Food in the South of India Here we are at the end of summer again … and what a summer it’s been, with many areas happily seeing much-needed rain and rivers flowing again after the long drought. It’s been a while since we’ve had to clean mould off household surfaces! Our Spice Discovery Tour to India has become an annual event, and we had a great time
Spice Kits Great Value Here we go again – summer holidays, outdoor living, Christmas entertaining, the whole delightful summer experience. For your own use, as well as for giving, there are lots of our gift kits that are full of wonderful outdoor and barbecue ideas – Barbecue, Al Fresco, Quick and Tasty and Entertainer come immediately to mind. The kits are still great value at just $30.00 each
Super Ras El Hanout Our tenth birthday has passed in a flurry of celebration, and we must say that it was very moving to receive good wishes and congratulations from so many of you – thank you. It seemed appropriate to mark the occasion by creating a brand new, very best, spice mix, and so our Super Ras el Hanout was born. Most of you will be familiar
Tenth Birthday Celebrations This winter sees us celebrating the tenth birthday of Herbie’s Spices. In some ways it seems a lifetime ago that we opened the doors of our tiny Rozelle shopfront with little fanfare, unaware of the huge changes it would make to our lives. Yet in other ways, the decade has sped by, leaving us almost breathless with the excitement of it
Lemongrass and Lemon Myrtle Lemongrass is an ingredient which lends authenticity and fresh flavour to many of our favourite south-east Asian foods. In that case, why would we make a decision to delete lemongrass from our range at Herbie’s Spices? Well, it’s a sad fact that lemongrass just doesn’t dry very well. We originally had a dried lemongrass that was finely chopped pieces from the green
New Book – Spice Notes and Recipes Proving that he has extraordinary time management skills, Ian “Herbie” Hemphill has found time to upgrade and enhance his classic book Spice Notes, which has just reincarnated as Spice Notes and Recipes. With a 50% increase in the word-count, and over 80 recipes, many of them created by Ian’s daughter, Kate, this new hard-cover book also covers
Products There are always little buzz-words and catch-phrases that can tell you, in retrospect, just which time-zone they were in. Remember fibre? These days it’s low GI. Remember low-fat? Now it’s 97% fat-free. (Thanks, Catherine Saxelby, for those updates.) There is a new word in the food business now; the word is provenance. With the advent of mad cow disease and foot and mouth
