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Wednesday 1 December 2021

Dill in Mustard Sauce?

(first posted 12th January 2017)

Dill

“But dill is a herb!” Mrs. D. gave me that withering look she normally reserves for her ageing mother. 

 I still thought I was right.

“They’re little fish - dill in mustard sauce.”

“It’s a herb! You wouldn’t get dill in mustard sauce. That would be like having basil in Worcester sauce or parsley in pineapple marinade.”

I sighed. “There was a tin last year in the Christmas hamper your mother gets from the pension company: a tin of dill in mustard sauce. They were little fish. Your mother gave it to us and they were really nice.”

“Sure it wasn’t sild?”

“It was definitely dill. As in a shoal of dill.”

There was nothing in the dictionary about dill as fish, only as Anethum graveolens, a European, pungent, aromatic, umbelliferous, annual, yellow-flowered herb of the celery family Apiaceae, used in flavouring pickles or to relieve excess wind, although in Australia and New Zealand it colloquially means a fool. Mrs. D. said that’s what I was being - or doing. I said we needed a better dictionary.

At Christmas, I can usually guess what’s in presents before I open them, but this one had me puzzled. It was too thin for a dictionary and the wrong shape for DVDs. I unwrapped it still wondering. 

It was a tin of John West herring fillets in mustard and dill sauce.

Dill in Mustard Sauce

37 comments:

  1. Funny. We use dill on some dishes, I am sure dill in mustard, the herb is quite strong, would strike the right note with fish. I love fennel sprigs on my fish and the plant is always so stately and tall and you can chew the seeds for digestion. First time I ate a seed, it brought back the memory of gobstoppers ;) a seed right in the middle when you came to the end.

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    1. They are delicious. Gobstoppers: nice idea but would rather avoid the dentist bills these days.

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  2. Mrs D sounds like a sensible woman.

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  3. Replies
    1. I like it that we laugh at ourselves rather than having arguments that turn nasty.

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  4. LOL. She's a clever one, that Mrs. D.

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    1. I live in hope that some of it will rub off on to me.

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  5. I am voting for sild and Mrs Tasker!

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  6. A very Scandinavian combination - and very tasty too.

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  7. I didn't know dill was a word only used by we down under. That would make me a bit of a dill but people know that already.

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    1. I quote from the dictioanry. But it takes one to know one.

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  8. Is Worcestor sauce similar to Worcestershire sauce? Anyway, I don't really care as I prefer Hendersons.

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    1. It depends exactly where it is made, but thank you for pointing out the distinction.

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    2. "Sp" - Worcester not Worcestor.

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    3. It's funny how people will often react that way when one is merely making a helpful correction. I won't bother in future.

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    4. It was extremely helpful, Sir, and I have corrected it. I am sure that, like me, they are grateful and more annoyed with themselves than with you. I should have checked with the spelling on the boiler. Please continue your helpful corrections.

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  9. As Ratana says, I really appreciate your professional approach...

    My Mum makes a great dill & mustard sauce to eat with cold salmon for breakfast. As I don't like salmon, I just have a dollop of the sauce on a piece of toast at these occasions.

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    1. Ratana is being very persistent in making her comments promoting Thai Boxing and other pastimes but I am afraid that once again I have deleted her.
      On toast! No fish! Devine decadence!

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  10. Throw the word gravlax in her face. Better still, throw the actual stuff.

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    1. Btw - are you benefitting from the adverts you have allowed below? Is it worth it?

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    2. There might not be a great difference between the John West product and some versions of gravlax, except I think gravlax is salmon. They wouldn't sell much in the English speaking world if they called it that. We no longer throw food around in our house.
      Regarding the ads, as explained in the link in the right hand panel, if the balance ever reaches the sum at which Adsense pay out (£60) I'll donate it to charity, possibly a food bank. I've just looked and after 7 years it is now £31.03. I allowed them originally out of interest in how they work, and have kept them because some are quite attractive, and it's also sometimes amusing how they relate to different subject matter.

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  11. Hahaha, Tasker - I think that a very cute gambit of your wife! Quelle surprise!

    I can imagine dill in mustard sauce - though never had one.

    I LOVE dill in cucumber salad, and think morose about my failure to raise it in my herb bed (designed after a proposal from a Vita Sackvoll-West book): a cartwheel (which I painted deep red) planted in every eights with another herb. All did very well - except dill...

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    1. Before dear Yorkshire Pudding hops in and corrects me: I know that Vita's name is "Sackville-West" (my Macbook doesn't and stubbornly makes auto-correction... machine over mind... )

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    2. That sounds like a very classy herb bed. I can't find a picture of it on your blog.
      You can never take the English or the teacher out of an English teacher.

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    3. Maybe (but I am not sure) there was a photo on my garden blog "Gardening in High Heels"? https://gardeninginhighheels.blogspot.com

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    4. Found it. Super post: https://gardeninginhighheels.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-herbage-cartwheel-text-by-me.html
      'I would file my "herbage cartwheel" under the heading “super tips that turned out rubbish”'. It seems it needed a lot of regular maintenance.

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    5. Thank you! My gardening blog I liked the best - at the moment I work on editing a real book-manuscript on my garden, in German of course, (after having let it composting for a while :-) )
      That you like the post gives me energy to go on, many thanks.

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  12. Regarding the new duvet, it has yet to acquire a furball or sicky but I', sure it will. Nothing remains perfect in this house thanks to my furry friends. lol
    Briony
    x

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    1. We know even when there is an invisible deposit because Phoebe stops sleeping in that particular spot.

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