I think I’ve only ever purchased Italian flat leaf parsley, though I’ve often seen/eaten the curly stuff, especially as a garnish.
I was watching a video recently (Notorious Foodie, who is great), and he was using curly parsley in a dish. Are there certain dishes where curly is preferred over flat leaf? Or where it is an acceptable substitute?
This SE chimichurri recipe specifies flat leaf specifically:
https://www.seriouseats.com/sauced-chimichurri-sauce-recipe
Many SE recipes specify flat leaf as well.
In French cooking, “fines herbes” just refers to “parsley” as one of the four, along with chives, tarragon, and chervil. I’ve seen articles referencing Jacques Pepin’s French omelette recipe and it just says “parsley” as well.
This section from Wikipedia seems to say that French is curly parsley… is that true??
So for a French omelette you would want to use curly parsley?
Just curious about which type people buy more often etc. TIA!
by shoesbetch
14 Comments
The ONLY time I use curly parsley is for tabbouleh, and that’s just MY personal preference. I like the flavor of it better with the other tastes in the raw salad, it makes a slightly fluffier salad, and it doesn’t seem to get stuck in your teeth quite as much. For everything else, I much prefer the flat leaf. I grow my own flat leaf, but if I want curly, I buy it.
I’m Team Flat, on parsley, singing and the natural result of driving over nails in what appears to be a super magnetized wheel.
Maybe it’s years of seeing it as a garnish, but curly just seems *wrong* to me.
I think you’re overthinking it to be honest. Flat is usually more robust in flavour than curly, but you can probably find the same difference in flavour between two flat leaf plants grown in different conditions.
Curly is what was traditionally available and used in some European countries, including France I believe, so you might see some recipes from these regions call for curly over flat. My default is to just purchase flat leaf, but you could always just keep a small curly leaf plant potted near your kitchen if you wanted the option of a traditional garnish on an omelette or whatever.
I had a college roommate from Spain and he’d take bunches of parsley, saute in butter and top with hot sauce. He served it as a side dish. He used curly parsley but I’ve never seen anything like it before or since so maybe he was just pranking me. Although tbf, it was very tasty.
Isn’t most of the flavor in the stem anyway? Does it matter?
In my major metropolitan (U.S.) region, curly parsley was the only option until the early ’90s. Until then, if a recipe called for parsley, curly parsley was the default.
Usually flat leaf too and that’s the one I grow. However I bought some curly the other day as it was all they had left at the store. Came in a huge packet and has lasted AGES in the fridge. Much longer than flat leaf!
I’m happy to use either now. 🙂
Believe it or not, curly parsley is delicious in tempura. And I don’t mean as a garnish. Just swirl a sprig of it in the batter and deep fry. Outstanding.
I generally prefer flat, but I too was recently thinking about this and hoping to dig into it further…seems like just automatically dismissing curly can’t be right…
ive always found curly parsley to be inferior in flavor. i also thought parsley was a bullshit herb for about a decade. found out, that shit fuckin slaps for real a bit ago and flat leaf is the truth, for me anyway. just speaking my herbal truth here i guess?
Curly parsley always seemed to have a much stronger flavor than flat, but that may be my inexperienced palate from my childhood. I alway prefer flat.
I feel there is unnecessary snobbery attached to flat leaf parsley, unsalted butter, and Chrystal Diamond salt. All are fine and have their places but a skilled cook with an open mind can make delicious food with all of the maligned alternatives.
Man I use to prefer flat lead but now am favouring curly. It’s a better texture when finely diced. Though I suppose flat looks nicer if your need big leaves for garnishing
Curly parsley is for dipping into Seder at Passover. I get it if flat isn’t an option, but I don’t love the rougher texture in salads.