In the culinary world, the addition or omission of an herb or spice can make or break a dish, and dill is one of those herbs.

It's so aromatic and distinctive, that it's not just famous for its supporting role in your favorite pickle jar.

A long, long time ago, the Romans thought that dill was good luck.

To the Greeks, it signified wealth.

And in the Middle Ages, it was used to ward off enchantments and witchcraft.

I'm Charity Nebbe.

On this episode of Iowa Ingredient, dill's fragrant personality is nurtured at Sweet Tooth Farm in Des Moines.

And our good friend, master chef David Baruthio, joins us in the studio kitchen to demonstrate how this ancient herb can have modern style and elegance.

All that and more, coming up next on Iowa Ingredient.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Funding for Iowa Ingredient is provided by the W.T.

And Edna M. Dahl Trust, Chef Lisa Lavelle of Trellis Cafe and the River Center, and Chef Michael Lavalle of the Des Moines Embassy Club.

For more than 100 years, the Des Moines Embassy Club has provided a place to dine, celebrate, and do business.

Located in downtown Des Moines and in West Des Moines.

And Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Just put that on side.

Just add some more cantaloupe flavor.

Chef Katey, you've done it again.

Thank you so much.

Santé.

Cheers.

If you walk over to your spice rack right now, I think the chances are pretty good that you'll find some dried dill, maybe dill weed-- that comes from the fronds of the plant-- or maybe dill seed-- those are the tiny fruits of the plant.

And dried dill is popular in dishes all over America.

Of course, fresh dill is popular as well.

And for many generations, people have believed that dill has some medicinal qualities.

So from its medicinal heritage to its culinary brilliance, dill is a pungent and fascinating herb.

[MUSIC PLAYING] So this is Mammoth dill, I really like it for its flavor, and it grows very well.

It's very hardy.

It's very fragrant.

When you walk by it, sometimes you get a really nice whiff of dill, which I enjoy.

Do you want to try?

Monika Owczarski owns and operates Sweet Tooth Farm with her husband Rene and their three children.

It's an urban farm in the Riverbend neighborhood, just North of downtown Des Moines.

Dill is one of the many herbs and vegetables they grow here.

We are kind of accidental farmers.

We moved into this neighborhood and this house about seven years ago, and this was a pocket park.

Unfortunately, there wasn't ever maintenance or upkeep funding allocated, and so, over the years, it just fell into disrepair.

The kids really stopped coming, and grown-ups came to do not great stuff.

My husband and I thought, you know, someone has to care.

Someone will care.

We'll just start calling.

[MUSIC PLAYING] After three years of phone calls, petitions, and persistence, the city agreed to lease them the land so they could start a commercial garden.

Sweet Tooth Farm is now growing on underutilized plots all over the neighborhood.

Some herbs are a little tricky, but dill is not one.

Dill is something that really can plant, give it a little water and sun, and it'll be just fine.

So when you're harvesting dill, it generally has one long kind of stalk to the plant, and then it'll have these small fronds that shoot off to the side.

And when you're harvesting dill, you generally just want to cut or pick off these.

And then the actual foliage is what you would use for cooking, or eating, or preserving, or whatever you going to use it for-- drying.

And then you can also use the tops-- the flowers-- for things.

I actually love to put these in food preservation items.

So I really love canning with these.

They're beautiful, and they have a really lovely flavor to them as well.

Dill is an annual.

It generally will not overwinter in Iowa, so you only to plant it every year.

Sometimes, if you let it go to seed, it will come back.

It does grow like a weed, thus the saying dill weed.

I like to plant it fresh every spring, so then I can kind of control where it is a little bit better.

If you let things go to seed, it's just a who's who of where it'll show up next year.

You can plant it pretty early in the season.

I generally plant it in succession, so I can have multiple cuttings, multiple rounds of harvest for dill.

It's something that I really enjoy using personally, and I also sell a lot of at my market.

Once it gets too hot, it's not great for germination, but you can plant, generally, all the way from end of April, beginning of May, throughout the end of July.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Monica was a social worker before she became a farmer, and cultivating community is as important to her as her garden.

When her neighbors noticed an increase in food insecurity during the pandemic, they started a community refrigerator on their property.

They provide access to fresh food for those who need it, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

[MUSIC PLAYING] My kind of love language has always been food.

I've always loved cooking and baking for people, and so this is just an extreme extension of that.

I really do believe in kind of loving your neighbor, and this is the way that I show that.

It brings me great satisfaction and happiness seeing people take the food that I've grown and tell me how much they enjoyed it.

It's something that is just deeply satisfying and nourishing to me personally.

[MUSIC PLAYING] One thing I really like to do, lemon juice, fresh dill, and butter, put it under the skin of the chicken and let it sit for a couple of hours, and it just has-- that's the taste of summer.

Dill, to me, is the taste of summer.

Oh, it's just so good.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Now, I'm here in the kitchen with one of our favorite chefs, master chef David Baruthio.

David, welcome back to the show.

Thank you.

It's great to be back.

And you're doing so many things.

You've got a restaurant in Switzerland, you've got a catering business in Iowa, you're a busy, busy, guy.

Very busy.

Thanks for taking the time.

Absolutely.

It's been a little challenging, with the traveling and all that, but somehow I made it back.

Yeah, we appreciate that.

That's what matters.

Yes.

And today we're going to be cooking with dill.

And I know that you love to cook with fresh herbs and you grow fresh herbs.

Correct.

I mean, we have the farm where we grow all our herbs, and actually dill is one of the ingredients that we cook with.

And I like dill, because it's got that freshness, but it's also got a Scandinavian kind of touch to it when you cook with it, like Norwegian.

And I love those Nordic flavors.

So today, I'm going to do a spin on something more Hawaiian using Nordic technique.

Ooh, that's going to be so much fun.

So now you grow your own, so of course you can get the freshest herbs.

And add a lot of farmers markets, everybody can.

Why would you encourage people to buy fresh herbs, as opposed to the ones that we could get on the shelf at the grocery store?

Well, first of all, the flavor is way better.

And also, you're supporting, hopefully, local farming by doing that, like local producer.

Versus if you buy something dried or processed, I mean, who knows where it's from.

Right.

Well, and I often find myself surprised by a flavor that maybe I was used to as a child having the thing from the grocery store, and then I have the fresh thing, and I'm like, whoa, that's completely different.

Exactly.

And you know, today, that kind of fashion comes back with fresh herbs garden.

And I remember, when I was a kid, my grandmother used to push the piece of salmon, overcooked, mediocre at best, with making a sauce out of dry dill, you know?

So it's just nice to kind of go the opposite way.

Yeah, absolutely.

And there are just so many options for buying fresh now.

I agree.

It's available everywhere.

Well, I'm excited.

Me too.

Shall we get cooking?

Let's go and cook.

All right.

I'm so excited about this, because dill is one of my favorite herbs.

What are we going to make?

Salmon.

And then we'll make a honey mustard dill vinaigrette.

That sounds amazing.

[MUSIC PLAYING] All right, what are we going to do first?

So we're going to make our salsa.

Great.

So we're going to peel some cucumber, peel some mangoes.

So I got some fresh mangoes.

Oh, nice.

And I like it, because it's all the flavor, the colors, and it's very, very tropical.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Your mango is a little on the firm side, does that make it a lot easier to manage.

I like it.

Yeah, it makes it easier, and also the mango will be tastier.

If they are too hard to cut and not firm-- you don't want them overripe, because then they oxidize.

They lose a little bit of their color.

But like this, they're the best-- they've got a good flavor.

So before I use it, I keep my mango outside the refrigerator.

So it's way, way better-- way tastier.

[MUSIC PLAYING] So then we'll add a little bit of dill.

So people like to chop their dill very thinly.

But I don't want to chop it, because I don't want to crush it.

I want to keep the dill really-- just pick at it.

I want to keep it that it's not falling apart-- it doesn't get mushed.

Just pulling off the little fronds.

Exactly.

So it's prettier.

And also, then you don't crush the flavor.

It doesn't oxidase, also, as quickly.

And dill, of course, can wilt really fast.

So you've got it in water there that's keeping it fresh.

Correct.

Yes.

Voila.

Wonderful.

So now, we'll take a little bit of lemon.

So first, I'm going to put a little bit of the lemon zest-- just a touch.

I cut my lemon in half, and we're going to put half of a juice.

A touch of olive oil, a little salt, a little bit of pepper, and then we're just going to mix it around a little bit.

[MUSIC PLAYING] And we'll keep this in the refrigerator until we need it.

Perfect.

All right.

Now, you have another recipe with dill.

Correct.

A simple vinaigrette, right?

A simple vinaigrette that will actually go with our dish.

Love it.

So we're going to use dill, fresh lemon, honey, mustard, salt, pepper, a little bit of white vinegar.

All right, I think you need a bowl for that.

I do.

Here you go.

So this really takes-- this is where the classic Scandinavian, Nordic-style cuisine is at.

So we squeeze some lemon juice, salt and little pepper.

We can always re-season it later.

So I'll put the honey.

Just a little.

Not too much.

You don't want to be too sweet on it, you know?

And then we're going to chop up a little bit of dill.

So this you want to extract the flavor, so you really want to kind of go very fine to it.

Every cut edge just gives you that burst of flavor, doesn't it?

Exactly.

You squeeze it out.

You extract the flavor, then you crush it.

[MUSIC PLAYING] I'm going to add some mustard to it.

So the whole grain mustard is essential in that vinaigrette.

That's what is going to be your binder-- what's going to keep things together.

All right.

And so much flavor in that as well.

Yeah.

OK. You're going to add that slowly.

Yep.

Very slowly.

All right.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Perfect.

It's getting the right consistency.

Voila.

All right.

And then I'll finish up with the touch of vinegar.

Voila.

Yeah, look at that pretty color.

That looks fantastic.

A little bit of black pepper to it-- not too much.

So now that our vinaigrette is done, let's move on to the salmon.

We're going to cook the salmon.

So I got beautiful Atlantic salmon.

That is lovely.

Yes, it's been skinned.

And I'm going to cut it very thin, not too thick, in little goujonette.

So I'm going to season it on both side.

And I'm going to just loosely add a little bit of dill to it.

So we're going to put a little bit of oil in our pan.

We really want to do a flash sear, that things get hot.

A hot pan, both sides.

And I like my seafood and my fish not overcooked, so I want to keep it a little bit pink in the middle, because I think it's just more flavorful like this.

Nice.

[MUSIC PLAYING] So you see our salmon is nicely nicely done on one side.

So I'm just going to flip it.

It's a good, beautiful, golden brown.

Oh, yeah.

We still have our dill here.

And I love my seafood, like I said, not overcooked.

So for me, this is like-- I will literally now cut the heat on it, let it set for a minute, and then we can work on the plating.

Wonderful.

So plating we've got our salsa, we got our vinaigrette, and I'm going to add a little bit of red sweet pepper.

All right.

Just for the color, because I like a little bit of contrast and a little bit of heat.

So those are not too spicy.

We don't want to put too much.

So we'll start with the salsa in the bottom.

One here.

Then I'll put the vinaigrette that we made before.

And I want to drizzle a little bit on it, but not too much.

It's more about if you don't want too much dressing you don't do it.

And it's right there.

You see how the colors are popping, and the flavor?

Yes.

Then, of course, a little bit of the dill, just to finish up here and there.

Voila.

And here I put a little bit of just a couple salad leaves.

And voila.

Oh, wonderful.

I have forks.

Let's try some of this.

You go ahead.

All right, I'm going to start with some of the salsa here.

And the salmon is cooked perfectly.

Oh, my goodness.

That's so good.

And with the vinaigrette, it just sets off the sweetness of the salsa.

Everything blends together so beautifully.

Oh, David, thank you so much.

My pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

So we've had that wonderful salmon dish, and now a cocktail.

A cocktail.

I created a recipe.

It's a gin fizz.

I'm a big gin fan.

I mean, I drink with moderation, obviously, but it goes very well.

You've got that kind of slight anisette set flavor on the back, but it's not totally quite that.

And I'm going to add cucumber for the freshness, a little bit of lime.

Gin-- some of your favorite brand that you have-- and then we're going to mud this.

A little bit of agave syrup, and we're going to have a wonderful cocktail.

All right.

And we've got agave syrup here, but you could use simple syrup.

Totally.

You can use simple syrup.

I could also use honey if you want to be more earthy, I guess-- more natural.

All right.

Wonderful.

Well, let's put this together.

So very simple step-- we're going to start with the lime.

We do need the lime juice from that.

So everything in one shaker.

[MUSIC PLAYING] So cucumber, you peel it before.

Just a little bit.

We're going to save some maybe for garnish.

Oh yeah, that would be nice.

This is a really great fresh drink.

I mean, if you're a gin fan-- and really, if gin is not your type of booze, you can totally use vodka.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Plenty of dill.

Plenty of dill.

The agave syrup.

And we're going to muddle that.

Muddle it up.

So you just want all those flavors to mix and mash, right?

Yes.

See, it's nicely muddled.

So now I'm going to put some ice cube in there.

We do need a few ice cubes to chill it.

It's a drink that you want to have very fresh-- very refreshing.

Very fresh, very cold.

Then the gin.

All right.

And then shaking.

All right.

Voila.

I mean, that's good.

All right.

It's a pretty fresh color.

Nice.

And you wanted to top that off with some sparkling water?

Yep, just a touch.

A bit of fizz.

Just to give it a little bit of a fizz.

And then I'll do just a little bit here on the side.

Put a little bit of cucumber.

Voila.

It's just looks beautiful, and it's so unique.

Let's try that.

Santé.

Cheers.

Oh, wow.

That is wonderful.

And that dill really comes through.

It pops out at the end.

Yeah, it does.

That's fantastic.

Chef David, thank you so much.

Merci.

[MUSIC PLAYING] I mean, I think anything's possible with a cookie.

You can put anything on a cookie.

You can put any words, any design.

If there's a shape that you need, there's 3D printers.

You can cut it out with a knife.

I do get a lot of messages, and people seem very timid.

And they're like, can you put this word on a cookie?

Can you put this design?

Like, it's OK if you can't.

Just, can you do this?

And it's like, yeah, absolutely I can.

The opportunities are endless.

So you could do anything.

And I feel like people don't know that, and they're kind of hesitant.

And they're like, oh, you can only do circles or a basic design, but you can do anything.

[MUSIC PLAYING] It's called the helicopter move.

You just swing it around.

And what this does is it pushes it all to the bottom, and then it gets rid of air bubbles.

So One Sweet Kitchen is a home-based bakery, meaning I bake out of my home.

Of course, you can tell it's a tulip without doing this, but this just gives it a little bit something extra.

I don't have a storefront, and I specialize in cookies.

I mainly specialize in custom sugar cookies.

So the previous owner developed it.

And I know it took her a while to get it down, because sugar cookies are very temperamental.

They're either too hard, or they get too brown, too cooked, they're not soft enough in the middle.

So we make ours pretty thick so they stay soft.

Even you can leave them out for a couple of days and they'll stay soft.

It's a very finicky recipe.

[MUSIC PLAYING] So I got started-- it really started in high school with my foods class.

And I think what really set it off was just spending time with that foods teacher after class, learning more about different kinds of pastries and breads that we just didn't do in class.

I got in touch with the previous owner of this company, worked for her for a couple of years, just doing the basics.

So we've got our tray with her parchment.

Cutting out, making the dough, just learning how the business runs.

And then, after about two years bought the business from her, and opened up shop here, and here we are.

And we'll put those in there for about 12 minutes.

So I think the most challenging thing would probably be time management and then space.

So the way that I test these is I'll pull it out a little bit, and then I'm just going to lift the edge.

I mean, as you can see, it's not a huge kitchen.

It's not a commercial kitchen.

I don't have a bunch of ovens and counters that you normally would in an actual bakery.

So I think space is a challenge.

I'm not a perfectionist but I know that a lot of these cookies are for really important events-- so weddings, birthdays, rehearsal dinners, engagements, things like that.

So because of that I, feel like it really does need to be special.

That's a really good part about doing this is they come to pick them up, you hand them the box, and usually they stand there for a few seconds and they say, oh, my God, I love them.

And that's usually the reaction.

That's kind of what I'm hoping for.

So I'll hover for a couple of seconds and make sure they like them, but that's a really nice part of it.

I really love is when people will reach out and tell me what the response was.

That's it for this week's show.

I'm Charity Nebbe.

Food helps us share stories and learn about the people of our state, and I'm so glad we can do that together, right here on Iowa Ingredient.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Keep in mind that circumstances are always changing, so please take a moment to check ahead if you're planning to visit a restaurant, farm, or event featured on the show.

Funding for Iowa Ingredient is provided by the W.T.

and Edna M. Dalh Trust, Chef Lisa Lavelle of Trellis Cafe and the River Center, and Chef Michael Lavalle of the Des Moines Embassy Club.

For more than 100 years, the Des Moines Embassy Club has provided a place to dine, celebrate, and do business, located in downtown Des Moines and in West Des Moines.

And Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation, generations of family and friends who feel passionate about the programs they watch on Iowa PBS.