Tag Archives: Wild Garlic

Wild Garlic and Tomato Cannellini

Two blog posts in one week is a record for me but I must get this out to you whilst the wild garlic is still in its prime……

School holidays, and just the time for a National Trust expedition, our membership (thanks sis’) is such a boon, if we’re away on holiday or visiting friends there’s always somewhere nearby to explore. This week it was a day trip from Bristol with old friends to Newark Park, near Wooton-under-Edge (close-ish to Stroud). Monday’s weather forecast was pretty grim but you can always bet on a quiz for the kids in the house and a good café to hole up in if things get really wet.

After a good look round the extraordinary house (austere Tudor hunting lodge with centuries’ worth of additions, brought back from rack and ruins in the 1970’s by a Texan tenant) we set off into the estate. I have NEVER seen so much garlic, all absolutely in its prime (now’s the time to pick, when the leaves are young and tender, before those lacy white flowers appear)

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And, before anyone suggests that we shouldn’t have been picking, it was all legit; we were given brown paper bags by the guy at the ticket office and invited to help ourselves, as long as we gathered carefully and didn’t uproot any bulbs. The smell was intoxicating as we foraged and even more so in the car on the way home.

Back in the kitchen I thought I’d give Imi the challenge of single-handedly putting lunch together (with just a little bit of instruction). This dish is so super-simple and keeps well for a couple of days in the fridge.

Wild Garlic and Tomato Cannellini

Jenny Chandler Cannellini200 g (ish) cherry tomatoes on the vine
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Large handful of wild garlic leaves
2 x 400g cans of cannellini beans (drained)
Splash of white wine
salt and pepper

Switch the oven to about 180ºC

Put the tomatoes in the oven with the olive oil in a heatproof serving dish and leave for about 20 minutes until they have split and softened.

Meanwhile wash the garlic leaves (there were plenty of dogs being walked along our path!) and then chop up roughly.

Use a fork to knock/scrape the tomatoes off the vine (a vine does look good on the top so you might keep one back). Stir in the garlic, beans, wine and season with a bit of salt and pepper.

Warm the beans through in the oven for about 10 minutes, long enough for the garlic to wilt.

Serve warm from the oven – you can eat the beans just as they are or you could

Try
-Doing the delicious double carb thing and serving with pasta (pile on some parmesan or pecorino too).
– Serving on sourdough toast, maybe with a bit of goat’s cheese.
– Eat alongside some fab’ sausages, lamb or fish.

 

 

So get your kids cooking, or throw something together yourself – it’s child’s play (sorry, had to be done) And for lots more inspiration there is , of course, a very handy book coming out in just a few weeks time. You could even click here to pre-order Cool Kids Cook !

 

Wild Garlic Flower and Tomato Salad

I’m determined to make this post a short one; I’ve not got much time because I’ve been squandering it of late. I took a day away from my desk yesterday to go for a walk in the woods. I so rarely allow myself to take time out on a weekday, it’s that ridiculous Protestant work ethic we had drummed into us as children.

Well, it was glorious and now I’m determined to get out more often (I really do need a dog and then perhaps I wouldn’t feel so guilty or self indulgent).  I know that “the simple things…..” message is an old one but I often need reminding myself, so perhaps you do too?

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Prior’s Wood is just 15 minutes drive from my home in Bristol and at this time of year it’s renowned for the carpets of bluebells. The bluebells were heavenly yesterday yet I can’t help feeling that the haze of lacy, white wild garlic flowers deserve a shout too. Just like the rest of their allium cousins the flowers are arranged in glorious little star-bursty spheres and look so delicate above the lush green leaves.

The flowers aren’t just pretty , they taste fabulous too – you don’t need many to garnish a salad or a cheese plate so I’m not recommending that you set off with your empty knapsack and pick flower heads for the five thousand. Just a dozen flower heads will be plenty to serve at least four people. Have a taste, each tiny flower has a little bubble of garlicky juices that burst into your mouth as you bite.

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Wild garlic leaves are tasty too but by the time the plants are flowering they’ve often become a little bitter. So now’s the perfect season for sprinkling teeny flowers over the first of the English tomatoes, which is exactly what I did for my lunch.

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I could have added some young cheese too but those green tomatoes were spectacularly good and I wanted to savour them. So, a dash of extra virgin Arbequina olive oil and a few grains of coarse salt was all I added before garnishing with the flowers.

As I said, the simple things…..

A Walk in the Woods, Wild Garlic Risotto & Other Stories

It felt as if it might rain at any moment  last Saturday but I was determined to collect my ramsons, as the wild garlic leaves are often known. In fact wild garlic has many common names such as wood garlic, buck rams, bear leek and even stinking Jenny (which sadly reminds me of my childhood nickname, Smelly Jenny, that was always banded about at Christmas when I just couldn’t leave the Stilton cheese alone) I’d been planning a trip to the woods ever since Jules asked me for some wild garlic recipes during a most fabulous dinner at Bell’s Diner a couple of weeks ago (there’s another blog post – I promise). So this post is for you Jules.

The damp air magnified all those incredible deeply earthy, vegetal smells of woodland and everything was so lush. The new beech leaves were that almost fluorescent green that lasts just a few weeks. Then, once we reached the sweeping carpet of wild garlic, the ground seemed an unnaturally vibrant shade of Pantone green, the sort of colour that Imi might paint a picture of a jungle. Old stone walls were blanketed in feathery moss, it was simply stunning and the waft of garlic almost overwhelming. The wild garlic is apparently an indicator of ancient woodland just like the bluebells that so often grow alongside – how amazing to think that this scene has probably changed so little over the centuries. It will be a picture here in a couple of weeks time too, with the white garlic flowers and the huge swathes of lilacy bluebells, but you’re best to pick the garlic now as the leaves do become more bitter as the season goes on.

I’m always dreaming of getting a dog, firstly because I adore them but also because they make you take the time out for a walk, and I just don’t do it often enough. The garlic hunt brought my friend Kate, me and our girls out into the woods on a day when you’d probably never have planned a stroll-  it seemed so gloomy and threatening and yet it was breathtaking. So get out there, come rain or shine, but do be a bit careful that you are picking garlic and not the rather similar Lily of the Valley. The smell will shout garlic at you and each leaf grows from a separate stalk where as the toxic Lily of the Valley leaves grow 2 or 3 leaves to a stem.

DSC_9617And what to do with your booty? I was planning on making and photographing a number of different dishes but I’m afraid we kept eating them before I got a chance to whip out the camera. The wild garlic leaves give a more chivey taste than the more familiar bulbs of garlic we buy all year round and I particularly love this flavour in anything  to do with eggs.
So here are a few ideas to set you on your way.

  • French Omelette- ( for 2) fry 1/2 a diced onion in a blend of olive oil and butter. Beat 4 eggs up with a splash of milk, pinch of salt and a handful of sliced wild garlic. Add the softened onions to the mix and then fry 1/2 of the mixture at a time in a small omelette pan. Grate over a little cheese such as mature cheddar as you are frying. (Don’t forget that omelettes are fab’ cold  in sandwiches – the Spanish do it all the time) Throw some into a Spanish tortilla with the potato or an Italian frittata with some courgettes and parmesan.
  • Scrambled Eggs – obvious but delicious all the same. Chop up a good handful of garlic leaves into ribbons and stir into the scrambled eggs for the last minute of cooking (just enough for the garlic to wilt.
  • Risotto- I’m being lazy but assuming that most of you probably have a basic risotto up your sleeve ( I should probably have done the same for the omelette!) Just stir a good handful of sliced ramsons (per 2 portions) into the rice a couple of minutes before you finish the cooking. I fried up my left over risotto the next day too…. Add a couple of eggs to the cold risotto to bind the mixture and throw in a bit of extra parmesan. Fry in a flat cake in your omelette pan, flip over using a plate and brown the other side too and serve with a tomato salad.
  • Pesto – Try substituting garlic leaves for the basil in a traditional pesto recipe. I like to make the pesto using Pecorino rather than Parmesan in this case. Don’t just use this for pasta, try it blobbed into soups or stews too.

I’m planning on coming up with a few more adventurous recipes over the next few weeks (Kate had a wonderful wild garlic bread and butter pudding in the Tyntesfield Café)  but I’m desperate to get this post off tonight and entice you into a bit of foraging whilst the garlic’s at its best.

And a little reminder to all you West Country-ites – there’s a BIG food festival happening in Bristol next month. I have a couple of classes here, on May 6th Eat your Way to a Healthier Lifestyle and May 7th  Spring into Summer. Take a peek at the full line up of events on the Bristol Food Connections website

Bristol Food Connections