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Blue fenugreek

Trigonella caerulea · Spice

Blue fenugreek is the milder, sweeter, gentler cousin of common fenugreek — a small annual clover-relative whose whole above-ground plant, not just its seed, is dried and ground to a soft olive-green powder. Where ordinary fenugreek seed reads maple-bitter and can turn acrid, blue fenugreek is rounded and hay-sweet: warm and nutty with a clover-honey lift and almost none of the harsh bitterness. It takes its name from the slate-blue flower heads and the powdery blue-green cast of the dried herb, and it is the defining, indispensable note of the Georgian spice blend khmeli suneli and of Switzerland's green Schabziger (Sapsago) cheese.

40 pairings
Where it grows
major regionnotable region