Oyster Soup with Fines Herbes

Fines herbes (pronounced feen zairb) is a mixture of equal parts of chopped chives, chervil, parsley, and tarragon, but I usually use half as much tarragon as the other herbs because it is the strongest of the four and tends to take over. If you don’t have all these herbs fresh, just use those you do have; don’t substitute dried. In fact, most recipes calling for fines herbes, including this one, are perfectly good with chopped parsley alone.