Cilantro, is there a substitute?
Dear Amy Drew:
… I am someone who can NOT eat cilantro … for me, it tastes like soap, so if I’m eating salsa that contains this noxious weed, it tastes like they washed dishes and never rinsed off the dish soap. Ruins everything it touches and in fact, when reading a recipe of something that sounds like I want to make, if I see cilantro in the ingredients, I stop reading immediately.
This saddens me, as I am missing out on some good food. I’ve heard cilantro described as “fresh and citrusy,” not the Dial soap that it tastes like to me. Fortunately, I do not have an aversion to coriander, which I love.
Can you recommend an herb or other spice that tastes similar to what cilantro is supposed to taste like? That would help ever so much.
Thanks a bunch,
Deb
Amy Drew’s Answer
Well, Deb, since I hate giving readers bad news if I can help it, I’ve enlisted an axman.
Chef Tim Keating spent nine years running the kitchen at Disney’s beloved Flying Fish Café before taking the helm at one of my all-time Restaurant Row favorites, the now-defunct Urbain 40. Keating is a free agent at the moment but always cooking and keeping busy, including in the garden where the cilantro runs rampant amid many other fragrant goodies.
Chef Tim?
“There is nothing that tastes like cilantro,” he says. “With cilantro, it’s either black or white. You love it or it tastes like soap. Having fed so many people throughout my career, I’ve found that there really is no substitute.”
Like Keating, I can’t get enough of the stuff, and yes, it is light and refreshing and herbaceous. Cilantro, to me, smells and tastes clean and alive. And for that, I feel lucky.
Deb is in good gourmand company though; Julia Child was probably the world’s most famous cilantro hater. She once told Larry King that cilantro “tasted dead” to her.
Science has said that some cilantro aversion is genetic. According to an article from Brittanica.com, these folks have a variation that amplifies the flavors of the aldehydes in cilantro, making them taste not merely clean, but like actual cleansers.
The news isn’t all bad, though.
“Other soft herbs, like Italian parsley, are more neutral,” says Keating. “It’s going to pick up more of the flavors of what you’re using it with, so you can still make a salsa or a given dish and have some of that greenness and freshness — but without the cilantro taste.”
Coriander, which is the seed of cilantro, can be toasted and ground. It is delicious, “but it tastes nothing like cilantro,” Keating notes.
“Mint is wonderful and fresh in some applications, and of course, we see fresh basil in bruschetta, which can be salsa-like, as well,” he offers.
In the end, Keating says it’s a simple fix.
“Try it! Make the salsa with parsley and see if you like it,” he says.
If not, try another herb until you find a love match.
And as for your cilantro encounters, whether in salsa, guac or peanut sauce, Julia Child had a fix, too.
“Pick it out and throw it on the floor,” she said.