Last year’s birthday dinner was the Around the World in 80 Mac-Cheese, this year’s green mac-cheese contained 68 Hablitzia shoots, 68 ramsons (ramsløk) leaves, 68 ground elder (skvallerkål) leaves and 68 stinging nettle (brennesle) shoots, with opium poppy seeds and nutty alpine bistort (harerug) bulbils on top!
The video shows me collecting the Hablitzia shoots!
Earlier this week with little time to make dinner this was the unlikely result: St. George’s, ramsons and red-leaved dandelion leftover pasta with Hosta icicles in Japanese dip.
Earlier in the day I had noticed a patch of St George’s Mushroom / vårfagerhatt (Calocybe gambosa) in the same spot it had turned up for the first time 3 years ago (see St. George’s Mushroom). They were then stir-fried with ramsons (ramsløk) and red-leaved dandelion (Taraxacum rubifolium) and some left-over wholewheat spelt pasta and were served with fried egg on home made garlic toast with a few prawns and some blanched Hosta “Big Daddy” shoots (Hosta icicles) as a side salad with an olive oil /soy sauce dip and the last bottle of St. Peter’s organic pale ale. LIFE IS GOOD!
The best of spring in one sitting. In celebration of the country Norway, we yesterday (17th May) harvested a small selection of the best blanched perennial vegetables (apart from the ostrich fern which had to be harvested or it would have been too late). This included three udo species (Aralia cordata, Aralia californica and Aralia racemosa), sea kale (Crambe maritima), Hosta “Big Daddy” together with delicious sweet blanched ramsons (Allium ursinum) . They were all eaten raw (apart from the fern which was steamed for 10 minutes) with a Japanese dipping sauce – olive oil (should have been sesame), tamari (soy sauce) and roasted sesame seeds. These accompanied an onion soup prepared with half of the leaves from one plant of Wietses Onion, a vigorous hybrid of Allium pskemense and Allium fistulosum!
It doesn’t get much better than this! More information with the pictures:
Presenting some of this week’s perennial greens and, in the case of the blanched Hosta shoots, perennial whites!
Hosta sieboldiana with ramsons / ramsløk (Allium ursinum) and giant bellflower / storklokke (Campanula latifolia)
AROUND THE WORLD IN THE EDIBLE GARDEN; Part 3 – Southern Europe and the Mediterranean countries
Inviting you to the third in a series of dinners from Malvik’s Edible Garden where we “forage” from different parts of the world!
If you’ve visited countries in south east Europe you will no doubt have eaten the delicious vegetable pies like Greek spanakopoita, Turkish börek, Italian Torta pasqualina, Bulgarian banitsa and others. Inspired by these and not wanting to make the time consuming to make filo pastry, we made a 100% wholegrain rye/barley quiche like dish with large quantities of the following perennial greens:
From left to right (from top left) :
Allium ursinum (ramsons; ramsløk)
Rumex patientia (patience dock; hagesyre)
Urtica dioica (stinging nettle; brennesle)
Silene vulgaris (bladder campion; engsmelle)
Rumex scutatus (Buckler-leaved sorrel; Fransksyre)
Rumex acetosa (sorrel; engsyre)
Myrrhis odorata (sweet cicely; Spansk kjørvel)
Malva alcea (hollyhock mallow; rosekattost)
Melissa officinalis (lemon balm; sitronmelisse)
Scorzonera hispanica (Scorzonera; scorsonnerot, svartrot)
Asparagus officinalis (asparagus; asparges)
Humulus lupulus (hops; humle)
Tragopogon pratensis (Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon; geitskjegg)
Taraxacum “Moss-leaved dandelion”
Campanula trachelium (nettle-leaved bellflower; nesleklokke)
Brassica oleracea “Daubenton variegated” (perennial kale; flerårige kål)
Allium zebdanense (white flowers) from Lebanon
(with garlic and chili and imported olives)
Last night we made a green pea soup and apart from the Hablitzia (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde), I used perennial vegetables growing in a wild part of the garden. With little or no help from me there’s a bounty of wild edibles in this area under wild hazels (Corylus avellana) and this made for a delicious pea soup with masses of greens.
Campanula latifolia is documented as used in spring soups in the 16th century in my area in Norway and Heracleum shoots are also a tradional soup ingredient, in particular Russian borsch now thought of as a beetroot soup was originally made with hogweed shoots.
I noticed yesterday that the ostrich ferns (strutseving) in the forest garden had put on a spurt despite the cold weather and were almost past the harvesting stage. This is the main disadvantage of this great vegetable. The harvesting window is very narrow. I quickly harvested some, taking care not to take more than 1/3 of the shoots. Together with Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach), a bit of sea kale (strandkål), ramsons (ramsløk) and sand leeks (bendelløk) this made a delicious green pasta sauce.
See the video before I picked below!
Presenting yesterdays greens used on a veggie 100% whole grain barley/spelt/rye sourdough pizza were:
Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach /stjernemelde) (eaten now every day since the beginning of March and there’s more to harvest now than at any time since I started!)
Crambe maritima (sea kale / strandkål)
Allium ursinum (ramsons / ramsløk)
Levisticum officinale (lovage / løpstikke) (I call blanched lovage “spring celery” as it’s not that much stronger than celery…and much easier to grow than celery organically)
Ligularia fischeri (Gomchwi; Fischer’s Ligularia / Koreansk nøkketunge) (King of the Sannamul: see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=3114)
Rumex patientia (Patience dock / Hagesyre)
Bistorta officinalis (Bistort / Ormerot)
