Sweet cicely ✦

Cerfeuil musqué

What it is

The whole plant tastes of aniseed and carries its own sweetness, so northern cooks stewed it with rhubarb and gooseberries long before sugar was cheap. It naturalised around abandoned cottage and monastery gardens, which is why it lines roadsides in the north of Britain and is almost absent from the south.

In the kitchen

Chop a good handful of leaf into rhubarb or gooseberries at the start of cooking and take a quarter of the sugar out of the recipe. The green unripe seeds are the strongest part of the plant — slice them raw into fruit.

Goes with

Rhubarb Gooseberry Redcurrant Cream Strawberry Apple Blackcurrant

In season alongside

Angelica Basil Fennel Hoja santa Marjoram Mint

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