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Dried Celery and Parsley Leaves
When the celery comes into the house, clip off with the scissors all the good leaves but not any of the stalks. Wash thoroughly. Place on a light brown paper and put in warming oven to dry quickly. When very crisp, rub through the hands or roll with a rolling pin, to pulverize.
This latter must be done, as they will soften a little by standing and the large pieces are not as desirable for cooking purposes. These should be stored in an air-tight can and will be found very useful in making stuffings, - added to a salad where celery flavor is desired, - also are delicious in making cream-of-celery soup, without further additions of celery. Even though parsley may be had all winter, try drying a small quantity, following same directions as for celery. When using onion in any dish, use parsley also.
A straightforward herb-drying method that still works, though the "warming oven" it assumes is a low-temperature compartment most stoves no longer have.
- The warming ovenA coal or gas range's warming closet sat well below true baking heat, probably somewhere in the region of 100-150F, lower than most modern ovens will go (many will not set below 170F or 200F). A dehydrator on its herb setting is the closest equivalent; failing that, an oven set as low as it goes with the door propped, watched closely, or simply a warm dry room over two or three days.
- Light brown paperPlain unbleached wrapping paper of the sort then to hand; it absorbs surface moisture and the leaves do not stick to it. Parchment, a fine mesh screen, or dehydrator trays all serve; avoid printed or recycled paper.
- Dry them clean and dry them fastThe hinge of the method is drying quickly after washing. Leaves left damp and warm for hours go musty and grey rather than green. Spin or blot them thoroughly before they go on the tray.
- Test for crispness properlyA leaf should shatter, not fold, when pressed. Anything still leathery holds enough moisture to spoil the jar.
- Why pulverizeThe instruction to crush is practical rather than cosmetic: powdered leaf disperses into stuffing and soup, while whole dried leaf rehydrates into unpleasant flaps. Doing it while bone-dry is far easier than after the leaves have taken up humidity from the air.
- StorageAn airtight jar in a dark cupboard, not on a shelf above the stove. Check the jar after a week; any condensation on the glass means the leaves needed longer and should go back to dry.
- Yield and useThe leaf yields very little once dried and crushed, so save the tops from several heads before you bother. Start with a teaspoon where the recipe wants celery flavour; the dried leaf is more concentrated and more bitter than the stalk.
- Parsley colourParsley loses its green readily at higher temperatures. Keep it at the low end and out of sunlight if you want it to stay green.
Celery tops were a part of the plant that nineteenth-century cooks were reluctant to waste. Blanched celery was a table luxury sold by the bunch, and the leafy crowns went into stock pots and stuffings instead. Drying them turned a perishable trimming into a winter seasoning at a time when a household's flavour cupboard was mostly what it had put up itself. The advice to pair parsley with onion "in any dish" is the sort of aside that marks these books as kitchen manuals rather than recipe collections; it is a cook's habit written down, not a rule with any authority behind it. Domestic drying of herbs long predates canning, and it survived into the canning era precisely because it needed no jars, no sugar and no heat processing, only patience and a warm corner of the range.