Dried Mint

Mentha spicata · na'na · podina

The herb that finishes the table.

What it is

Dried mint is spearmint, dried until brittle and crumbled. Drying changes it. The sharp, cooling top note of fresh mint fades and something rounder and slightly hay-like comes through, which holds up against garlic, yoghurt and fat where fresh leaves would wilt into nothing.

Where it comes from

Spearmint grows readily wherever there is water, from the eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia, and across that whole belt it is dried in summer for use all year. In an Afghan kitchen a jar of it sits next to the salt.

What it's called

Na'na (Dari and Persian) · podina (Pashto, from the same root as the Hindi pudina). Spearmint, Mentha spicata, is the usual plant. Dried peppermint is harsher and not a good swap.

In the kitchen

It goes on last, rubbed between the palms over the dish so the warmth of the hands wakes the oil in the leaves. That is how it finishes the garlic yoghurt on mantu and aushak, the borani, kichiri quroot and a jug of doogh. In aush it goes into the yoghurt sauce, with fresh mint in the soup itself. Eight of the zone's dishes call for it, and in none of them is fresh mint a straight substitute.

What we know about the claims

Peppermint oil has reasonable evidence behind it for an unsettled gut. A pinch of dried spearmint over yoghurt is flavour, not medicine, though it is part of why doogh is drunk as a digestive.

Choosing and buying

Any supermarket sells it, but Middle Eastern, Turkish and Afghan grocers sell it by the bag, greener and far cheaper. Buy it green, not grey-brown, and smell it: it should be sweet and strong. Keep it airtight and out of the light, and replace it once a year.