Monthly Archives: February 2023
Wild Enoki, Oca and Hablitzia scrambled eggs
Wild Enoki, Oca, Hablitzia, wild buckwheat sprouts, Allium nutans with dandelion, garlic chilis mixed with scrambled eggs for a delicious home grown and foraged lunch!
Enoki is one of the hardiest fungi appearing often midwinter in mild winters. Also known as velvet shank (vintersopp in Norwegian, meaning winter fungus; Flammulina velutipes). Many had been reporting finding this species recently, and I too found some when I visited the botanical garden the other day! It’s difficult to believe that this is the same fungi as Enokitake or Enoki, sometimes offered in supermarkets and one of the most popular cultivated fungi in the Far East. The cultivated fungi are long and white as they are grown in the dark in an enriched CO2 environment which gives longer stalks.
Rhizo-bacalhau
We occasionally eat wild fish and bacalhau is a favourite made from Norwegian dried cod that can be found in supermarkets here. More or less anything goes in bacalhau (bacalao) and although most people make it in the same way – layers of potato, fish, tomato and onions, often with chili – the Portuguese have hundreds of ways of preparing baccalao (dried cod). Being self-sufficient, detailed recipes aren¨’t useful and we use whatever is available at the moment. Winter is the time for stored bulbs, corms, tubers, rhizomes, and taproots. See below the picture for yesterday’s baccalao ingredients with 14 home grown below surface storage organs plus some greens (I’m pretty sure nobody else had this version of the dish…ever!):
Oca (Oxalis tuberosa): yellow and red varieties
Garlic / hvitløk (Allium sativum)
Wapato (Sagittaria latifolia)
Potato / potet (Solanum tuberosum) – 2 varieties
Jerusalem artichokes / jordskokk (Helianthus tuberosus)
Parsnip / pastinakk (Pastinaca sativa)
Scorzonera / scorsonerrot (Scorzonera hispanica)
Common onion / kepaløk (Allium cepa)
Cacomitl (Tigridia pavonia)
Yacon (Polymnia sonchifolia)
Burdock / storborre (Arctium lappa)
Madeira vine (Anredera cordifolia)
Parsnip / pastinakk (Pastinaca sativa) shoots – had started shooting in the cellar
Leaf beets / bladbete (Beta vulgaris var. flavescens) – 3 varieties
Allium nutans (forced in the living room)
plus (not home grown) organic tomatoes, olive oil and olives
(I forgot the dandelion…will add tonight: we make enough that it lasts for several days….and the taste improves!)
Mapuche nuts
Thanks to my friend Geir Flatabø from Hardanger, I could finally add monkey puzzle nuts (piñones) to my life list of plants eaten (Araucaria araucana; also known as Mapuche nuts or Chilean pine nuts; apeskrekk in Norwegian). Like large pine nuts, they were delicious! Can’t wait 40 years for my first home grown nuts ;)
I also sowed a few as the single young tree in my garden needs company and I’d also like to plant some in the community garden (Væres Venner). I don’t know of any trees that have survived on this side of the fjord, but on the slightly milder northern shores of Trondheimsfjord there are a least two sizeable trees. I reckon climate change has come far enough now for us now to be part of the Norwegian coastal zone north to Tromsø where this tree should grow! I’ve tried a couple of times before without success!
The very sharp end to the nut is clearly designed to penetrate the soil after falling!
I planted a small tree in the garden last summer, grown from seed and overwintered a couple of winters in my cellar, and it seems to be doing well so far! Here¨’s a couple of pictures taken today:
February salad
Lunch salad had the following ingredients;
From the garden:
Allium scorodoprasum / sand leek / bendelløk (shoots)
Allium cernuum / nodding onion / prærieløk (bulbs and leaves)
Hablitzia tamnoides / Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde (shoots)
From the cellar:
Brassica oleracea / perennial kale / flerårig kål (new leaves)
Cichorium intybus “Witloof” / chicory / sikori (shoots)
Taraxacum spp. /dandelion /løvetann (blanched cellar shoots)
Apium graveolens / celery / selleri (new and old leaves from stored celery plants)
Brassica rapa / turnip / nepe (roots)
Brassica rapa / turnip / nepe (leaf shoots)
Daucus carota / carrot / gulrot
From the living room:
Allium nutans (forced shoots)
Allium sativum / garlic / hvitløk (forced bulbils)
Taraxacum spp. / dandelion / løvetann (forced green leaves)
(served with feta cheese, olive oil, olives, salt and pepper)
Habby Chicago Eggs
I was showing a journalist around the winter edible garden and cellar this morning and dug up some nodding (Chicago) onions (Allium cernuum) and picked a few Hablitzia shoots, so why not turn it into lunch! I sliced an oca (Oxalis tuberosa) in with the vegetables. Scambled Habby Chicago eggs is simple gourmet midwinter food from garden to table in no time!