Cooking with herbs and spices in traditional English, Spanish, Italian, French and Cypriot recipes.

Herbs and Spices are truly amazing cookery ingredients: a little pinch of this or that can totally transform a dish from the ordinary to something really delicious.

The use of herbs in cooking can be traced back in recipes to a first century Roman cook book; spices too have been used for many centuries across the world. Today they still give an extra dimension to everyday meals by not only adding their own flavouring but also bringing out the full taste of other ingredients. Many countries add herbs and spices in their daily cooking but each country tends to use them in their own unique way to achieve different taste experiences. Our recipe collection gives extensive examples of many international recipes showing the use of herbs and spices.

When buying herbs or spices only buy the ones you use regularly; they tend to lose their flavours reasonably quickly once opened. Of course, this doesn't apply if you grown your own! See our Grow Your Own section for more details.

To find out how to use a particular herb or spice, search our database by name to find out how it is used in cooking and in what quantities, or use the 'quick links' below. Remember to use in the quantities recommended; it is easy to add extra amounts of a herb or spice but not so easy to remove excess!