Adventure 50: Garlic breath

"Eat leeks in March and wild garlick in May,

And all the year after the doctor will play"

This old Welsh proverb may have something in it. Reading up on the nutritional values of wild garlic (the Irish chef, Roseanne Smith has a good article here) it is high in folic acid and is mildly antiseptic and capable of warding off mild coughs and sneezes. Excellent stuff. And quite frankly, I felt a bit sorry for my collection of wild garlic stashed away in the freezer and was eager to do something with it. I found an excellent blog called Food Fun which had some mouthwatering recipes that I have tried this week. Wild garlic is so versatile and so much nicer than supermarket garlic. It's subtler and frankly tastier. 

Recipe 1: Cream of Wild Garlic Soup (serves 2)

1 onion diced

350ml vegetable stock

50g wild garlic

350ml cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Dice the onion and fry for around five minutes

Add the 350ml vegetable stock

Add the wild garlic

Boil for ten minutes

Blend into a fine soup

Add the cream and stir for five minutes careful not to allow the soup to curdle

Serve adding salt and pepper to taste

Verdict: delicious, subtle taste of garlic, went down easily, really quick to make (took me 15 mins in all)

 Recipe 2: Chorizo and Wild Garlic Pasta (serves 2)

Pasta of your choice for two (250g)

100g chorizo

Handful of wild garlic

3 spring onions 

Tsp of olive oil

Boil the pasta with a bit of salt

5 minutes before its done, add the chorizo finely chopped to a pan and fry

3 minutes before its done add the spring onions finely chopped and the wild garlic

Mix in well with your pasta

Verdict: not often that Levi touches my foraged dishes, but he finished it all and is very open to having it again. The chorizo and the wild garlic make a wonderful partnership. Delicious and easy to make.

With the second frozen bag, I decided to have a go at preserving it for future use by making it into pesto and paste. 

Recipe 3: Wild Garlic Pesto (a decent size pot)

80g Wild garlic

50g Parmesan cheese

50 gPine nuts

100ml Olive oil (with more to cover)

Grate the cheese finely and add the cheese and the pine nuts into a bowl and blend into a paste

Add in the wild garlic and blend further

Blend in the olive oil in two batches

Put in a sterilised jar and cover with oil

Refrigerate

Verdict: not sure I will ever remove the bits of pine nuts that catapulted everywhere when blending it, and my thumb has gone numb with all the hand blending, but the result was tasty and pleasing. 

Recipe 4: Wild Garlic Paste

100g Wild garlic

5g salt

100g Rapeseed oil

This is apparently a German recipe. I love Germany and their food is amazing so I thought I'd give it a shot. Sprinkle the salt on the wild garlic and leave for 15 minutes.

Blend in with the oil

Put in a sterilised jar and cover with more oil to preserve. Refrigerate.

Verdict: bit salty for me, but might be very nice in a few months time when I can scoop some of this green loveliness into a pasta sauce.

Real ale news...
 

And lastly, in real ale news - we missed the Tucker's Maltings this year. The weather was just too glorious on Saturday, however good the beer would have been. We caught the train up to Barnstaple and walked by the estuary to Fremington nearby. 

Lovely views over the boats, blazing sun and lots of greenery for me to look at (I'd asked Levi earlier for an empty carrier bag - "you've been scheming for a premeditated foraging trip!" said Levi, as I later whipped the bag out to gather some dead nettles. Guilty as charged, I'm afraid). Fremington was on the quiet side, but there was a beautiful stately home belonging to a branch of the Acland family as we entered the village and a decent pub called the New Inn. Only two ales on, Doombar and Exmoor Bitter. Although a bit on the cold side, they were well kept (and being such a hot day, the coolness was much welcomed) and the bar lady was very friendly. Definitely one to go back to at some point. 

On a last note, we met the North Devon branch of the Communist Party. He stopped repeatedly on his bike waving his arms full of copies of the Morning Star, shouting "don't vote Labour, what ever you do! We don't want that again!" Sadly, Ben Bradshaw already has my vote. Sorry mate: Who can resist a man who can pull off this scarf?

Adventure 49: Goosegrass is not just for scurvy...

Typical Easter holiday. Just beginning to feel vaguely human again at the end of a busy term: sleeping a bit, catching up with friends and drinking a few nice beers and then my nemesis hits: the bastard cold (BC for short). Stinky, nasty little coldy, why do you pester me so? My bones ache, my head pounds, my nose pretends it's a tap and all I want to do is to retreat under my duvet. So what better to do, than to go foraging! Hooray! I was quite interested to find out this week that Goosegrass is very high in vitamin C and used by sailors in the past to prevent scurvy. Ok, I don't have scurvy (though I probably should knowing how little fruit and veg I eat) but a big dose of vitamin C can't hurt the BC, right?

In preliminary walks with the dog since I've been in London I've seen a lot of goosegrass about, and thought it might be fun to make something warm and healthy out of it. And so, my father and I set out for a walk with the dog yesterday to explore the urban common land near our home in Hampton. We walked through Hatherop Park and down the footpath that way behind Kempton Park Resevoirs. From there we walked through Hanworth to Hampton Common. Not too bad for suburbia, I didn't think. There were lots of growing things: Goosegrass, nettles, dead nettles, dock leaves, plantain and ground ivy. I picked a few handfuls of Goosegrass as my main ingredient and a little bit of everything else. Amongst other things it was fun to catch up with the pater and he's offered to help me find Marsh Samphire next time we are by the sea. He said when he was little a family friend, McKenzie Thorpe, used to boil it up and eat it with vinegar. I'll write some more about McKenzie (known as the Wild Goose Man) another time, when I'm feeling less poorly, but he was an interesting character and friend of my grandfather, who helped the naturalist and painter Peter Scott with his work.

(Did I mention it was pouring with rain... Yes, I sure do enjoy a bit of a soaking when I'm ill, hence the mardy face)

Once home I found an excellent recipe here for Goosegrass soup. 

You will need: 

1 onion 

2 garlic cloves

3 handfuls of Goosegrass

2 handfuls of wild greens (I used dead nettles and dandelions)

Some wild herbs to taste (I used ground ivy)

Oil

2tsp flour

Vegetable stock

First I chopped up the greens coarsely, along with an onion and the garlic. I fried the onion and garlic for a few minutes before I mixed in the flour. Then I added the vegetable stock (1.2l) before putting in my greens to boil for 15 minutes (apparently the boiling dissolves the little barbed hooks that makes Goosegrass stick to you). After that I left the mixture to cool a bit and then blended it smooth. 

And voila, a tasty green soup was born, served here with a dollop of creme fraiche and some pepper to taste. Easy peasy and fairly tasty (can't put an exact finger on it, maybe a bit like cress?). And if that doesn't help the BC, there's always lempsip.