Written by
on Wednesday, 03 May 2017.
Tagged: dairy, health, healthy eating, nutrition, review, yoghurt
As a regular user and fan of the Gourmet Garden Stir-In Herb pastes, I was interested to try the semi-dried herbs in my cooking and as garnishes. I like to cook my meals from scratch but as a busy business woman, I also take the odd shortcut. If I can cut out washing and finely chopping chilli, coriander, basil or chives and still get their great burst of flavour, then I’m prepared to give it a go. Let’s see how they performed.
Gourmet Garden produce 8 in their range – Basil, Chilli, Coriander, Ginger, Parsley, Chives, Mixed Herbs and Southeast Asian Seasoning. We found 5 of the range and tested Basil, Chilli, Coriander, Ginger, and Chives.
Herb | Ingredients | Taste raw | Aroma |
Basil | Organic Basil 92 per cent, vegetable oil, sea salt and antioxidant (ascorbic acid). | Has a good Basil flavour but also slightly salty. | Smells like you expect Basil to, except perhaps not as strong as fresh but definitely recognisable. |
Chilli | Chilli 95 per cent, vegetable oil, sea salt and antioxidant (ascorbic acid). | Tastes like chilli. The heat is a little delayed but once it comes through it’s quite hot. Doesn’t taste salty like some of the others. | Smells like chopped chilli |
Ginger | Ginger 94 per cent, vegetable oil, sea salt and acidity regulator (citric acid). | Tastes like fresh ginger except considerably more salty. | Smells like fresh chopped ginger. |
Chives | Organic Chives 94 percent, organic canola oil, sea salt and antioxidant (ascorbic acid). | Tastes like chives only salty. | Quite a sulphury smell when you first open the packet. Not really how I’d expect chives to smell. |
Coriander | Organic Coriander 94 per cent, vegetable oil, sea salt and antioxidant (ascorbic acid). | Slightly salty. No feisty coriander taste.
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Smells like a damp green herb, it didn’t smell like coriander at all. |
On their website they claim that the herbs are:
Product | Basil | Chilli | Chives | Coriander | Ginger | |||||
Per serve 0.6 g | Per 10 g | Per serve 1.1 g | Per 100 g | Per serve 0.5 g | Per 100 g | Per serve 0.5 g | Per 100 g | Per serve 1.1 g | Per 100 g | |
Energy kJ |
5 |
862 |
11 |
998 |
3 |
654 |
4 |
755 |
14 |
1250 |
Protein, g | 0.1 | 6.5 | 0.1 | 7.5 | 0.1 | 4.3 | 0.1 | 7.1 | 0.1 | 3.5 |
Fat Total,g |
0.1 | 14.9 | 0.2 | 16.5 | 0.1 | 9.5 | 0.1 | 13.6 | 0.2 | 20.7 |
Sat, g | 0.1 | 1 | 0.1 | 1.2 | 01 | 1.0 | 0.1 | 1.0 | 0.1 | 1.5 |
Carb, Total,g | 0.1 | 5.5 | 0.1 | 10.9 | 0.1 | 7.4 | 0.1 | 12.3 | 0.2 | 21.0 |
Sugars, g | 0.1 | 4.8 | 0.1 | 10.9 | 0.1 | 7.4 | 0 | 0 | 0.1 | 7.4 |
Sodium, mg | 24 | 3940 | 16 | 1410 | 11 | 2220 | 14 | 2850 | 24 | 2160 |
Would I buy them again? Probably not. I already use the Gourmet Garden chilli, garlic and ginger pastes in my cooking and on the whole I think I prefer these. The one I might have considered is coriander as a big bunch invariably has a good deal of wastage but the coriander was the most disappointing of the ones we tried.
If you’re heading out for a week's camping, these Gourmet Garden lightly dried herbs are perfect. However I can see their usefulness. If you’re looking to go up the coast for a weekend or are camping and you don’t want to take jars of dried herbs or armfuls of fresh with you then these are perfect; or if you’re really busy and you don’t like using the pastes then they’re a good choice for you too.
Thanks to Munaiba Khan, a retired naturopath with an interest in nutrition, for this review.
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This post was researched and written by Catherine Saxelby, an accredited nutritionist, dietitian, author and award-winning food communicator. Catherine's goal is to help busy working women eat well, maintain a healthy weight and boost their energy.
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