Employee Picks – Lemon Balm

Every Month we bring you ‘Employee Picks‘ where one of our Nurtured team will choose their favourite product and share with you all why they think it’s a must have in the kitchen and what they would pair it with.

Our grower, Martyn explains why Lemon Balm is his favourite product this season:

“The beautiful Lemon Balm smell just reminds you of those lemon sherbets you used to get and its a really good plug, because its very good at reducing stress and you can put them in tea, to make a very stress relieving tea.”

Martyn being a keen grower here at Nurtured in Norfolk went on to say..

“This beautiful shoots of the Lemon Balm micro cress can be used for decorating desserts and many other culinary uses that are really nice. Lemon Balm is one of our best sellers here at Nurtured in Norfolk”

Some other ways to use this versatile micro green would be to pair the strong flavour of Lemon Balm with more mild tastes such as seafood, honey, citrus, cucumber, desserts and cocktails to produce a ‘shock to the mouth’. Use Lemon Balm in place of lemon peel in recipes and to flavour soups, sauces, vinegars and seafood or add it to your favourite biscuit for a pretty tea accompaniment.

Martyn’s Top Tips…

• Make a sleepy time herbal syrup, for a delicious way to calm and relax everyone from children to adults.
• Sprinkle on salads or in baked goods.
• Make a lemon bug spray.
• Make a lip balm for dry and chapped skin.
• Make lemon balm soap.
• Make a relaxing bath.

Did you know…

We grow our lemon balm for its aromatic heart-shaped and toothed leaves and simply when touched, pressed or bruised they release an intense lemon fragrance. Nurtured’s fresh leaves reveal a sweet lemon zest taste and produces citrus flavours with mint undertones. Its sceintific name is ‘Melissa Officinalis‘, ‘Melissa’ being a latin derivation of the greek word for honey bee; ‘Officinalis‘ indicates that the plant is medicinal in nature.

Lemon balm is a strong, aromatic herb used commonly to infused oils, teas, syrups and sauces. It can be prepared fresh, or dried and crushed for dry seasoning.

The extract of lemon balm has very high antioxidant levels with calming properties; thus it is used in herbal tea remedies and lemon balm oil is often used in aromatherapy.