Tag Archives: New Zealand Spinach

Korean tempura and dipping sauce for perennial vegetables

AROUND THE WORLD IN THE EDIBLE GARDEN; Part 2 – Korea
Inviting you to the second in a series of dinners from Malvik’s Edible Garden where we “forage” from different parts of the world!
We don’t often eat oily food, but now and again its great and this meal was exceptional!
From top left and clockwise:
Ligularia fischeri
Dystaenia takesimana
(Giant Ulleung celery, seombadi)
Aralia cordata (udo) (blanched for dipping and green for tempura)
Phyteuma (should have been japonica, but I used nigra; svartvadderot)
Allium victorialis subsp platyphyllum (victory onion; seiersløk)
Aralia elata (devil’s walking stick, fandens spaserstokk)
Hosta “Frances Williams”
Hemerocallis dumortieri (flower shoots) (dayliliy, daglilje)
Parasenecio hastatus (also the first time I ate this one and it was delicious, but I wouldn’t advise eating a lot: see here http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=23845)
Matteuccia struthiopteris “Jumbo” (ostrich fern; strutseving)
Taraxacum albidum and to the right of this:
New Zealand spinach and
Serratula coronata (also a first for me; the subspecies insularis is eaten in the Far East)
Oplopanax horridus (North American species substituting Asian species Oplopanax japonicus or Oplopanax elatus)
More information with the pictures!

 

Veggie wholegrain pizza with New Zealand Spinach

My daughter asked if we’d like to come and join her and her friend in Napolitana (the village pizza restaurant). We were actually just about to eat pizza with new zealand spinach (NZ spinat), broad beans (bondebønner), Johannes shallots (Sankthans-sjalott), patience dock (hagesyre), sea kale (strandkål) and steinsopp (cep / porcini) topping with Hartington Silver thyme (timian) in the tomato sauce with chili….on a sourdough pizza made with 100% wholegrain barley (bygg), svedjerug (Svedje rye), spelt and emmer wheat.
We ate at home!

Nutritional analysis of Hablitzia

My article “Caucasian spinach: the unknown woodlander” was published by Permaculture Magazine 9 years ago in 2007 (see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=1984 and also my book Around the World in 80 plants). In the meantime this vegetable has become a popular perennial vegetable and forest garden plant grown by thousands around the world, and is perhaps the first new vegetable to become popular thanks to social media and the permaculture movement! At last the results of a project to analyse the nutrient content of this plant have been announced on our Friends of Hablitzia FB group by Leena Nurmi who carried out the work for her masters thesis in Finland! And the news is very good, confirming that Hablitzia (Caucasian Spinach) is not only a fantastic productive perennial vegetable but also is superior to spinach and New Zealand spinach nutritionally and for those who worry about oxalic acid and nitrates, both are within accepted limits!!
Time for a celebration

She writes: “Hello Stephen and other Hablitzia friends! Greetings from Finland. I have done my master’s thesis about Hablitzia “Hablitzia tamnoides – a new but old leafy vegetable of early summer: cold stratification of seeds and nutritional value of leaves”. Now I am writing a scientific article about the nutritional value of Hablitzia. Caucasian spinach contains particularly plenty of carotenoids, folates, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and zinc. Also many other nutritions were larger in Hablitzia than in spinach and New Zealand spianch. In my study the oxalic acid, nitrate, cadmium and lead contents did not outweigh the permissible threshold values. The seeds of Hablitzia need to be stratified either in a cold room or outside during winter in order to germinate. The highest germination rate was 52 %, recorded from the Tampere population stratified at +5 ºC in a cold room. The seeds of Tampere population were picked up in February and sown for stratification in the middle of March. In Finland Hablitzia grows even in Oulu, but wetness of soil kills the plant very easily.”

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Habl_Lathyrus_IMG_1100_lit OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA