SEASONED SALT

Salt and nine other ingredients that together give you what you would otherwise spend half an afternoon at the stove for. Lovage sets the tone – the herb many people know as “Maggi herb”. It is joined by parsley, dill, chives and chervil, soup vegetables, green and red bell pepper, and onion. The small amount of annatto seeds at the very end is there for color: it gives the finished broth the golden hue you know from a good homemade one. Part of the blend goes through our mill, the rest stays coarser – so the fine part dissolves in the water right away, while the larger pieces release their aroma slowly. We blend it in-house and sort it by hand. No yeast extract, no flavor enhancers.

Robust, herby, savory – the taste you immediately associate with “homemade soup”. Up front is the lovage with its spicy depth, underneath are the fresh green notes of parsley and chives, a delicate anise scent from the chervil and the mild sweetness of the bell pepper.

As a quick vegetable broth: 1–2 teaspoons per half liter of water, then season to taste. Otherwise anywhere savoriness is missing – in potato soup, lentil and pea soup, goulash, stews and sauces, in gravy, cream sauce and pan juices. Just as good in risotto, rice and pasta dishes, on roasted vegetables and fried potatoes, in ground meat, meat patties and marinades. Cold in herb quark, yogurt dip, cream cheese and salad dressing, or simply over scrambled eggs and tomato soup. For soups, cook it along so everything dissolves completely – for dips, let it steep briefly in a little liquid first.

Lovage is colloquially called “Maggikraut” (Maggi herb) because its smell is so similar to the well-known seasoning sauce. The curious thing: the sauce never contained lovage – the herb just happened to come very close to the taste and has carried the name ever since. Chervil is one of the oldest garden herbs in Europe and is still an essential part of Frankfurt green sauce today. And the annatto seeds that provide the color come from the annatto shrub of Central and South America. Their pigment also colors cheddar and many other cheeses around the world – that bold orange color does not come from the milk after all.