Juniper Berries

I decided to cook the lamb shanks I've had in the freezer for a while now and I found a nice recipe for Greek lamb braised in red wine. The recipe called for juniper berries and I did manage to find some - at more than five dollars for a little jar! I purchased them anyway so I'll have to find some other uses for them. According to Chowhound.com they have an affinity for the following foods: allspice, apple, bacon, black pepper, boar, duck, goose, marjoram, onion, pâté, pork, sage, shallot, red wine, thyme, venison, vermouth.

The juniper is an evergreen tree native to Europe and North America and it produces small bluish berries (actually a tiny, densely packed cone) which take three years to mature. Juniper berries have been used since the times of the ancient Romans, Greeks and Egyptians. Pliny mentioned that they were used in place of expensive imported black pepper and juniper berries were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Juniper berries are probably best known today for giving the liquor gin its characteristic flavor. The word "gin" is a corruption of genièvre, the French word for juniper.

Celtic lore tells us the juniper grown by the door will discourage thieves (probably because it's a prickly plant), while hanging strings of dried juniper berries will attract love.