The March 2017 Extreme Salads: Ingredients and preparation!

I had already agreed in the autumn to take part in the culinary program of this year’s Kosmorama Film Festival in Trondheim in collaboration with the leading restaurant Credo. I therefore made my plans to make a diversity salad back then by moving roots and plants of perennials, that I could force early to be ready to harvest in early March, into my cold cellar. The cellar is  basically 4 unheated full size rooms under the house which, in a normal winter, are around 2-4C, perfect for storing vegetables.

Other connected posts:
The Credo/Kosmorama diversity dinner: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=10138
The Credo/ Kosmorama Extreme salad (with 105 ingredients): http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=10184
The Extreme Winter Record Salad (with >140 ingredients): http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=10199

I’ve divided the ingredients into 11 groups and each are discussed in turn below.  The first group of vegetables were:
1) CELLAR STORED ANNUAL VEGETABLES
These are traditional vegetables, both leafy greens and root crops like potatoes.  I transplant all the leafy greens, like swiss chard, kales, leeks, parsley and chicories  from the garden to pots and wooden boxes full of soil. If the temperature is below about 4C, most of the vegetables go into a hibernation state and I can continue to harvest them when I need them. As the temperature increases many of the plants sprout and in the dark (it’s not necessary to use lights at all) the young growth lacks chlorophyll (are blanched). Here are a few pictures (the captions tell more):

2) PERENNIAL VEGETABLES FORCED IN THE LIVING ROOMS
These are mainly roots and tubers of perennial vegetables dug and planted in large pots, most of which were stored in the cellar before being moved and forced in cool or warm rooms in the house to get an earlier harvest…these included Udo or Aralia cordata (the first time I’ve forced this plant, inspired by the underground forcing chambers in Tokyo) and the only flower, oxlip (Primula elatior). Here are some of these (see the captions for more details):

3) PERENNIAL VEGETABLES HARVESTED IN THE CELLAR
These are all perennial plants that continue growing in very low temperatures such as kales, horseradish, dandelion and fool’s watercress, which despite the name IS edible (see the captions for more details):

4) TREE LEAVES FORCED INSIDE
Lime leaves are reckoned by many to be the most tasty tree leaves (at least of common European trees). I have a few trees in the garden, so I cut off a few branches a couple of weeks ago and forced them indoors (with the branches in water)….the leaves appeared just two days before time…

5)  SEED SPROUTS
Both seed of annual plants like cress and buckwheat, perennial seed of sweet cicely (stratified / cold treated outside for about 3 months) and bulbils (garlic) were used. All seeds were home grown (see the captions for more details):

6)  OUTSIDE HARVEST
Despite the cold weather and snow cover, it was possible to locate various plants that had begun shooting under the snow, mostly different Alliums (onions), but also Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach) that always begins shooting in the autumn. Another winter annual plant (germinating in the autumn and standing green over winter) harvested was Alliaria petiolata (hedge garlic). Also Scorzonera, Tragopogon, Ragged Jack kale and various dandelion cultivars / species were also harvested outside (see the captions for more details):

7) DRIED AND FRESH FRUIT
Apples (variety Aroma) were used fresh, stored in the cellar and a number of dried fruits (soaked in water for a couple of days) were also used. These included sour cherry, plums, apples, saskatoons, raspberry, black raspberry, redcurrant  and bilberry.

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8)  TUBERS STORED IN THE LIVING ROOMS
These are tubers that are stored at higher temperature like oca, ulluco, Madeira vine, achira, Tigridia and yacon:

9)  INSIDE HOUSE “WEEDS”
Chickweed (Stellaria media) was harvested from a pot of chives in the kitchen, one plant of Ligularia fischeri was found growing in a pot with a cactus (seeded from a perennial in the garden) and one Hablitzia plant had seeded itself with a bay tree.

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Harvested chickweed with oxlip flowers

10) HOUSE EDIBLES
A few plants are permanent house plants in my living room, including Cuban Oregano, Lippia dulcis (Sweet Aztec Herb), Lemon Grass, fresh Bay Leaf and Sugar Cane.
The salad dressing: These flavourings were first boiled with freshly harvested sour tasting seed heads of staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) and a little dried chili. The remaining concentrated water was mixed with olive oil (not home grown although I do have 3 berries ripening on a small tree!) and crushed garlic to make the dressing. Toasted seeds (see below) were mixed in.

11) SEEDS

The final category is seeds, including seed of opium poppy, caraway, dill and invasive Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) which were first fried quickly in olive oil and then added to boiled quinoa (my own selection “Stephe”) and Henry quinoa (seed of Good King Henry)

PREPARING THE SALADS
Preparation is simple.

1) Wash and cut (I use scissors for leafy greens) all the ingredients and put in the serving bowl
2) Put aside interesting and colourful ingredients which can be used to decorate the salad
3) Prepare the dressing
4) Mix the dressing with the quinoa/seed mix
5) Mix the dressing mix into the salad
6) Decorate the salad
Some pictures can be seen below of the salads at different stages of preparation

Birds seen from the house today 11th March 2017

Oystercatchers (tjeld) are one of the first spring migrants to arrive here and early March is the normal time. I was woken up by the characteristic piping call of these birds this morning!
An eagle also suddenly appeared right outside the window where I sit, no more than 30m away…but it was all over in a flash and it was gone……

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Here’s a distant shot of the newly arrived Oystercatcher lovers ready for the excitement ahead!

 

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Velvet scoter (sjøorre) numbers are building up as the herring are beginning to spawn in the fjord (the spawn is an important food source in spring) and one of the biggest flocks in the country with up to a thousand birds gather for the annual feast gather in the part of the fjord I see from my house, before departing for the breeding grounds. A small flock of 8 birds were feeding below the house today.
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Treecreeper (trekryper) in the garden
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A fieldfare (gråtrost) getting more and more brave as I move the apples gradually closer to the house!

 

Extreme winter record salad

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Proof one more time that north is best for growing a diversity of tasty salad greens ;)  Presenting (and claiming) my new world winter salad diversity record, a salad with over 140 ingredients all harvested locally without using any additional energy than is available in my house and cellar (no greenhouse; no freezer; no fermenting involved and only dried fruit and seed used apart from fresh vegetables!). Despite the snow cover I was able to harvest some 20-30 edibles outside. More on how this can be done will be the subject of a separate post!

The salad was presented and eagerly devoured by those who had bought tickets for the Gourmet Cinema event on 9th March 2017 as part of the Trondheim Kosmorama Film Festival! It went so quickly, I didn’t even get a taste myself!

The film was followed by a Food talk with a panel including the film’s director Michael Schwarz, the head chef at Credo Heidi Bjerkan, myself and Carl Erik Nielsen Østlund, the owner of the biodynamic organic farm that supplies much of the food to Credo, moderated by Yoshi!

http://kosmorama.no/en/2016/12/gourmet-cinema-in-defense-of-food

As Michael Pollan concludes in the film:
Eat Food, Not too much and (as many as possible) mostly vegetables!

The day before, I had prepared a 105 ingredient salad for the festival dinner at Credo restaurant (http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=10184). While preparing that salad, I made a second salad with the same 105 ingredients…and then added almost 40 additional ingredients that I hadn’t had time to harvest the day before!

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The Credo / Kosmorama extreme salad

I also produced this ca.105 ingredients salad for the Credo / Kosmorama diversity dinner last night (8th March 2017), a new winter personal best in winter diversity for me and most of the dinner guests will have doubled their vegetable life lists :)
Another post will show how this is possible so far north with snow on the ground for the last 2 weeks and no use of greenhouse, freezing, fermenting nor extra heat and also discuss some of the plants seen in the picture :)

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Norwegian: Med ca 105 ingredienser alle bortsett fra oliven er produsert hjemme i Malvik, ST er min ny vinter rekord i grønnsaks-mangfold :)

Kosmorama/ Credo diversity dinner #1

Last night (8th March 2017) was the first of two events I had been asked to take part in celebrating the diversity of vegetables that our area has on offer (or could have on offer) even in winter! The Trondheim Kosmorama international film festival are showing two films related to food. Last night, the film “NOMA: My perfect storm” was shown and around 40 people also bought tickets to a fantastic 10-15 course, 4 hour meal (I lost count) at Trondheim’s NOMA: Credo!
I supplied a number of vegetables for the dinner and these are shown here, several being served for the first time in Norway :)
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All the veggies including Primula elatior (oxlip / hagenøkleblom flowers)
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Blanched dandelions (løvetann)
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Oca, ulluco, Hablitzia shoots (stjernemelde) and Chicago onio
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Blanched horseradish (top left) with blanched wild dandelion, Aleksandra garlic bulbil sprouts, Chicago onion (Allium cernuum), different types of Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) and Ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus – green tubers)
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Sweet cicely / spansk kjørvel seed sprouts at the top with blanched horseradish shoots at bottom and blanched wild dandelion on the right

Visit from Stjärnsund

Lovely overnight visit and little garden tour with co-author of Fleråriga grönsakerwith Philipp Weiss (Swedish Perennial Vegetables) Annevi Sjöberg with her Carlo and my new friend little Albie :)
I don’t think this will be the last visit with Malvik being on the way between Dalarna in Sweden and the surfing beaches on the west coast ;) with Carlo and Albie in my winter Forest Garden…look forward to the summer picture :)
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…and I came home to this farewell, it must be the edible house on the hill ;)

Today in the garden

A few pictures of life returning to the garden…

Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden