Instructions

1. Either kind works, and the choice changes the jar. Curly parsley holds its shape and stays recognisable as leaf; flat-leaf has more flavour and collapses into flakes. Pick one and do the whole load in it, because they do not finish together.
2. Take the bunch in the morning after the dew has burnt off. Once the sun is properly up the plant has already lost some of the oil that a dried herb consists of.
3. Wash it in cold water and shake it hard over the sink, then leave it on a towel until the leaves are matt rather than shiny. Surface water is simply extra time in the machine.
4. Pick off the leaves and the fine stems at the top and keep the thick lower stalks out of it. Those stalks are still wet long after the leaves have gone brittle, and one of them will leave the whole jar damp.
5. Build a loose bed on a fine mesh insert, five or six millimetres deep, and settle it by shaking the tray rather than pressing on it. The airflow has to find a way through, and parsley leaf is light enough to be picked up off an open tray.
6. Dry at 40 °C for 4 hours. From the midpoint on, rub a leaf between finger and thumb: it should powder rather than crease.
7. Stand the tray on the bench for ten minutes or so. Hot leaf reads as drier than it is, and a jar filled warm will mist.
8. Break the leaf up by hand or leave it as it is. Eighteen recipes on this site want dried parsley, and a full load gives back about an eighth of what it weighed fresh — which is a year of them.
9. Screw the lid down and keep the jar in a cupboard, not above the stove. A week later, hold it up to the light: mist on the glass means the batch needs another run.