Today I harvested the year’s first broad beans at the Væres Venner Community Garden where KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) are developing a garden:
I also harvested the first potatoes at home…and the year’s first falafels resulted with new potatoes for dinner. The falafels were flavoured with salt, pepper, shallots, chili and golpar (ground seed of any species of Heracleum or hogweed) which gives a delicious exotic flavour!
Heracleum sibiricum gives the local variant of golpar here…most people have a local variety of hogweed to harvest, even Giant Hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) or Tromso palm (H. persicum), the latter giving the most authentic Iranian golpar spice.
Onion bhajis are a popular and delicious starter in Indian restaurants and common veggie fast food in supermarkets in the UK. They are basically onions in a gram flour batter which are deep fried in oil. Gram flour is made from chick peas. If I could get it, I would prefer to use broad (fava) bean flour which could be grown here in Norway. I have a lot of (bulb) onions left in the cellar, so decided to make some bhajis…..and with my cellar full of sprouting dandelions I decided to mix some dandelions into the batter for a slightly more healthy meal :)
Apium nodiflorum (shoots from my cellar), parsley and dandelions from the cellar
Great to be home again to nutritious vegetarian food! Presenting this week’s two dishes, each lasting two days: dried broad bean falafels (with golpar spice) and a mixed cellar veggie wholegrain sourdough pizza with masses of forced dandelions and perennial kale shoots!
Broad bean falafels with potato and Begonia heracleifolia flowers
The first harvest at the KVANN vegetable sanctuary garden at Væres Venner was broad beans (bondebønner) from a mixed grex and this was turned into delicious falafels that almost melt in the mouth! The year’s first falafels or hummus is a real highlight of my gardening year…and did you know that the original falafels and hummus were made using broad (fava) beans, sadly replaced by inferior (in my opinion) chick peas….and we can experience this dish fresh even in cold areas where other beans won’t grow!
AND the colour is a natural beautiful green inside….they are often made with some leafy green vegetable added to supply the greeness of the “real” falafel!
NB! Falafel doesn’t have to be ball shaped and deep fried…these are pattie shaped and shallow fried..
Ready to harvest at Være
The first harvest!
Cooked and mixed with onion, garlic, cjhili, cumin (should have been golpar!), coriander, salt and pepper, with a little egg and einkorn flour!
Fava falafel: tastewise, it doesn’t get much better than this!
Swiss chard from the cellar (the light coloured leaves have started to grow in the dark), ocas, ullucos, Allium fistulosum, leek, dried tomato, garlic, bay leaves and buckwheat shoots
…for a stir-fry with chili and golpar spice (from Heracleum maximum seed)
Buckwheat (bokhvete) sprouts on the window sill (from seed collected in Hurdal)
Buckwheat (bokhvete) sprouts on the window sill (from seed collected in Hurdal)
Mustard sprouts (also from Hurdal), for some reason only germinated along the edges of the pot!
Sand leek (rocambole) or Allium scorodoprasum gives bigger yields here than leeks, so it’s not surprising to learn that this perennial onion was probably cultivated by the Vikings (it is found naturalised near many old Viking settlements in Scandinavia) and I believe it is the original “geirlauk” (meaning spear onion) and the root of the word garlic in English… See also pages 215-217 in my book!
I hadn’t noticed the red base to the stems seen in these pictures before…
I used it in a quick scrambled egg dish together with Amish onion (Allium x proliferum), sorrel flower shoots, ground elder (Aegopodium), nettle (Urtica dioica), Hydrophyllum virginianum (water leaf) with golpar spice.
These pictures can also be seen on my 700 plus album of Allium pictures on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150966880345860The scapes of Allium scorodoprasum could certainly be described as spear-like
Thanks to my visitors Berit Børte and Ane Mari Aakernes for this “lovely” omelette this evening….dandelion flower buds and fiddleheads, ramsons, chili and Heracleum persicum spice (golpar) in the omelette!
Gram or chick pea flour with golpar and black onion seedThe batter (add the sliced onions and water to make a thickish batter with a little salt).Deep fried onion bhajis Persian style!
Indian bhajis are a popular snack or side dish in UK Indian restaurants…deep fried onions in a batter made of chick pea flour with various spices usually including cumin, coriander, black onion seed or kalonji (Nigella sativa), I replaced the cumin with golpar (ground seed of Heracleum persicum collected from a wild stand in Trondheim)! Delicious!
P.S: Mental note: try with broad bean flour!
I like to cook on the wood burning stove in winter…here’s a scene from the preparation of last night’s home grown veggie curry with Basella, Swiss chard, the two leeks I managed to dig up from the frozen ground, onion, garlic, dried chantarelles and winter chantarelles, apple, chili, coriander, golpar (Heracleum persicum spice) served with onion bhaji and rye (svedjerug) “rice”…it doesn’t get much better
A few pictures of seed I cleaned and packed for trading, offering to Norwegian Seed Savers and using in the kitchen today!
131116: Added a few more that I was sorting today!
151116:…and a few more today
161216:…and a few more today
Udo, Aralia cordata
Iranian golpar (Heracleum) to be used as a spice in the kitchen
Iranian golpar (Heracleum)
Iranian golpar (Heracleum)
Iranian golpar (Heracleum)
This is a vigorous Angelica that I received as Angelica atropurpurea, but I’m not sure that is the right ID. Whatever, I sometimes use it ground as a spice in cooking!
Angelica atropurpurea
Angelica atropurpurea
The seed pods of some forms of Allium wallichii (Sherpa onion) are inky, like this one, from Nepal, harvested today
I pulled these clusters of Aralia elata seeds down from my oldest tree today! (Devil’s Walking Stick, Norw: Fandens spaserst\okk; Jap: tara-no-ki; Kor: dureup namu
Rumex acetosa “Russian Giant” (sorrel / engsyre)
Rumex acetosa “Russian Giant” (sorrel / engsyre)
Coriander “Confetti” / koriander
Tradescantia ohiensis
Caucalis (small bur parsley / klengekjeks)
Sonchus oleraceus “Giant from Oregon” (thanks, Pamela Melcher :)
Buckwheat / bokhvete
Ligularia fischeri – I have PLENTY of seed of this one!!
Aralia elata
Elsholtzia ciliata, Vietnamese Balm…love the smell of these!
Elsholtzia ciliata, Vietnamese Balm…love the smell of these!
Rubus occidentalis “Black Hawk”, Black raspberry…plenty of seed this year…will clean better if anyone is interested in them..
Tigridia pavoniana….could have the tastiest bulbs in the world!
Tigridia pavoniana…..for more, see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=5470
Seed from an accession of Hablitzia tamnoides from Tampere in Finland!
The first time I’ve managed to grow Perilla to seed (pot grown and brought inside to mature). I hadn’t noticed before but they have a fine netting around them..
Staphylea pinnata, Bladder nut
Acmella oleracea, toothache plant
Acmella oleracea, toothache plant
Elsholtzia ciliata, Vietnamese Balm
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) flowering stems
