Tarragon for dishes And Its Medicinal Uses

Hundreds of lip smacking and delicious food items are prepared from the extracts of the plants and trees. Ice-creams, snacks, savories and other mouth watering dishes are made from the extracts of the seeds and barks. The aromatic oil extracted from the leaves and seeds are used in perfumery, cosmetic and other medicinal properties. It looks like that the plants and trees living on this earth are created by the almighty only to support the lives of other living species. Cultivate the habit of sowing seeds and saplings from now on and live a happy life in future.

This topic will deal with a perennial herb named Tarragon which belongs to sunflower family. The botanical name of this plant is Artemisia dracunculus. It is found in the wild across much of Eurasia and North America and this wonderful plant is cultivated for culinary and medicinal purposes in many countries. One of the sub-species namely Artemisia dracunculus var. sativa is used as culinary herb. There are different types of Tarragons namely French Tarragon, Russian Tarragon and Wild Tarragon.It achieves a height of 150 cm with slender branched stems. The lanceolate green leaves are 8 cm long and 10 mm broad. The greenish-yellow flowers are produced in small capitulate 4 mm diameter containing 40 flowers.

French tarragons

French tarragons does not produce any flowers and seeds. Some tarragon plants produce seeds that are generally sterile. It has rhizomatous roots and it reproduces rhizomes wonderfully. It is the most popular variety which is used in the kitchen and proper care should be shown while purchasing the true tarragon since there are inferior varieties in the market. It grows well in hot, sunny areas and needs minimal water.

Russian tarragons

Russian Tarragons has weaker flavor than French variety. It is imperative to note that Russian tarragon is much hardy and vigorous than French. It grows well in poor soils and tolerates drought. The young stems can be cooked as asparagus substitute. It can be grown indoors and planted out in summer.

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Spanish tarragons

The better substitute for French tarragon is Spanish tarragons. Spanish has a stronger flavor than Russian. The aromatic smell from the Tarragon emanates due to the presence of estragole a cacogenic substance. It is considered as one of the four fines herbes of French cooking. It is used in chicken, fish and egg dishes. The sprigs are steeped in vinegar to produce tarragon vinegar.

Uses

1. Tarragon is used to flavor carbonated drink in the countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
2. It is used in the drink named Tarhun.
3. Iranians use it in their side dish named sabzi khordan or in stews and in Persian pickle named khiar shoor.
4. In the country of Slovenia, it is used in roll sweet caked called potica. Hungarians use it in chicken soup.
5. The oil contains phenylpropanoids such as methyl chavicol (16.2%) and methyl eugenol (35.8%).[11] Gas spectrometry analysis of the essential oil revealed the presence of trans-anethole (21.1%), α-trans-ocimene (20.6%), limonene (12.4%), α-pinene (5.1%), allo-ocimene (4.8%), methyl eugenol (2.2%), β-pinene (0.8%), α-terpinolene (0.5%), bornyl acetate (0.5%) and bicyclogermacrene (0.5%) as the main components.