Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Herb guide to Rosemary along with all the Rosemary containing recipes presented on this site, with 286 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives information about Rosemary and a listing of all the Rosemary-based recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Rosemary as a major herb flavouring.

Rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalis is a woody perennial which in its upright forms can grow to about 1.5 m tall (though there are dwarf varieties). The leaves are highly fragrant, evergreen and needle like. Despite its appearance rosemary is actually a member of the Lamiaceae or mint family of plants and is native to the Mediterranean region of Europe. The leaves can be used dry or fresh and have a bitter rather astringent taste that complement fatty foods such as lamb or oily fish. The plant is a native of the Mediterranean and is used commonly in both Italian and Greek cuisines.



It is a perennial woody herb that can grow, maximally, to 1.5m in height. The individual branches bear evergreen, needle-like leaves that can grow to a few centimetres long and which are highly aromatic, green above, and white below, with dense short woolly hair. During Spring and Early summer the flowers appear in clusters at the base of the leaves and can be white, pink, purple or blue in colour.

It is commonly grown in gardens both as an ornamental and culinary plant. The cultivar Miss Jessop's Upright is particularly suited to culinary use. Tuscan Blue with its more upright form provides good leaves and long stems are also useful, when stripped of their leaves, to make barbecue skewers. Most rosemary cultivars are sensitive to waterlogging and are frost sensitive (though frost-resistant cultivars such as Arp are now available. If growing rosemary you should mix plenty of grit with the soil to ensure sufficient drainage.

The leaves have a resinous scent with a camphorous quality and a bitter overtone that is not unpleasant. Typically they contain from 1 to 2.5% essential oil, of which 1,8-cineol, camphor, borneol, α-pinene and bornyl acetate are the main components. The leaves also contain variable amounts of tannin, which contributes to their bitter qualities. When burnt, the leaves give off a mustard-like smell and an aroma similar to burning wood, which can be used to flavour foods while barbecuing

The modern English name, rosemary derives from the Classical Latin name of the plant (rosmarinus), which is interpreted as being composed of the components ros (dew_ and marinus (of the sea). Thus rosemary can be interpreted as meaning 'dew of the sea'. This may refer to rosemary's ability to thrive in arid conditions, with the only water source sustaining them being the mists rolling in from the sea. It should be noted that, according to Greek legend rosemary was the plant around the goddess Aphrodite as she rose from the sea, born of Ouranos's semen. Thus the name rosmarinus may be a false folk etymology from an earlier name of Greek origin now lost to us.

A similar false etymology originated in the Middle Ages from the legend that Mary, the mother of Christ supposedly spread her blue cloak over a white-blossomed rosemary bush when she was resting, and the flowers turned blue. From this it came to be believed that ros marinus actually meant the 'Rose of Mary'.



As well as being used in roasting and cooking (chopped rosemary leaves are wonderful if mixed with thyme and sprinkled over new potatoes before roasting) a herbal tea can also be made from the leaves and the wood gives off a distinctive mustardy smell when burnt (just try using rosemary wood as skewers for barbecued kebabs). Rosemary is also a very useful food preservative and can be used infused in oil or vinegar for pickling. Though it is typically used with lamb and mutton, rosemary goes wonderfully well with fatty meats (try with pork and oily fish) and works with game meats of all kinds.

The recipes given below contain rosemary as an important or dominant component. However, you can also access all the recipes on this site that contain rosemary as an ingredient.