Green goodness: herbs at their finest

I never understood how some people just don't like herbs or greens, for that matter. I know a handful of people who just can't eat pho with the cilantro/green onion garnish, or don't like the natural taste of a simple spinach salad, or even the taste of fresh mint and perilla in a spring roll. Maybe it's the taste, but I can't imagine a world where herbs didn't exist.

They're delicious AND healthy - who can refuse them? Sure, there's that slight bitterness to it, but isn't that what the good stuff's made of?

Herbs come in all varieties, shapes and sizes... and surprise, surprise, as anything green and pseudo-bitter, they come with a heaping amount of good health kicks. In relation to cognitive health, certain herbs have been found to promote recovery following memory loss. A recently paper in Plos One written by Zhang and colleagues used a memory-loss rat model* and treated these rats with a chemical cocktail of herbal medicine (extracts came from different herbs including an herb that's in the mint family). What they found was memory function was improved and several genes were activated that promoted brain recovery and function.

Yes, herbs are healthy and that's all great, but how do you reap the full benefits of something? Oftentimes, eating fruits and vegetables in their raw form offers you the most nutrients (cooking sometimes kills proteins and essential nutrients). For herbs, one of my favorite recipes is to do a variation on a thai salad, known as larb.

Larb plays on sour and salty and spotlights different herbs and greens at their finest - when they're prepared fresh, with no fuss. This is probably my go-to dish when I'm heading out to the potluck event or hosting a girls' night. It's simple to make and can be done within half an hour (including prep time!).

Ingredients:
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes (or one large tomato)
- 1 bundle of green onions, chopped
- 1 bundle of cilantro, chopped
- half a head of napa cabbage, shredded
- 1-2 bundles of mint leaves, chopped coarsely
- Three bundles of dried vermicelli
- 2 limes or 3 lemons (more sour, the better)
- 1/2 of dried red pepper (or fresh peppers) - used to add spiciness
- 1/3 cup Fish sauce, use more to taste
- optional: ground meat or mashed tofu for protein punch (I didn't add it into this particular batch, but I like to sometimes boil tofu and mash it up into tiny pieces and infuse into the dish, similar to adding gorgonzola onto spinach salad). Alternatively, you can do ground meat.

Protocol:
1. Toss vermicelli into boiling water for 1 minute - immediately remove and toss the noodles into cold water. Let the noodles sit in cold water until ready to use
2. Chop up greens and throw them into a large mixing bowl - the bigger the bowl, the more flexibility you have to mix ingredients together

3. Once all greens, tomatoes and garlic have been chopped, add in vermicelli. The noodles should be cold and expanded. Toss the noodles in and mix the ingredients all together.
4. Squeeze lime/lemon juice and start with 1/3 cup of fish sauce - mix everything together.
5. Depending on how sour/salty you want your larb to be, adjust the amount of lime juice or fish sauce
6. If in a spicy mood, garnish with red pepper flakes or fresh chilis!
7. Serve immediately, or keep chilled - larb stays good in the fridge for a few days, but you may need to adjust the flavor since lime juicy becomes less potent over time.

Hopefully you guys like this dish - it's a great light dish to have and packs a lot of flavor, making for a great dish to bring to holiday parties!

Until next time, happy eating all!




***Supplemental information regarding the cited paper:
Rats were treated with Ibotenic Acid (IBO), a drug that causes severe injury to site of injection and leads to neuronal loss. In this paper, they tested memory function using Morris Water Maze (a platform is submerged under water and rats have to learn where the platform is in order to avoid getting wet for a long period of time) and differential gene regulation was observed using DNA microarray.

References:

Zhang J et al., 2013. Ameliorative effects of a combination of Baicalin, Jasminoidin and Cholic Acid on Iobetenic Acid-induced dementia model in Rats. Plos One.