Tag Archives: Dandelion

Forced blanched Udo Baccalao

Inspired by my visit in the spring to Tokyo’s underground blanching of Udo (Aralia cordata), see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=8299, I dug up a couple of roots in the autumn for indoors forcing.  I kept them cold in the cellar until about a month ago and then progressively moving  them first to a cool room at about 10C and then the living room at about 18C when I’m at home  (about the same temperature as down the Udo underground forcing caverns!)
I used them both in salads and also in a mixed vegetable baccalao dish. Baccalao is a Norwegian / Portuguese stew based on dried and salted cod.

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Roots dug up in the autumn and planted in a large bucket which was put in my cold cellar for 4 months
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Shoots appearing in my living room with another bucket over the top to keep light out! Note the thin white shoots appearing around the edges…this reminds me of the video from Mountain Gardens telling that Udo spreads by rhizomes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNzCpfSQWks&feature=youtu.be
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Tasty blanched Udo was used to decorate the salad I made for Credo Restaurant in Trondheim during the Kosmorama festival!
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Blanched Udo at the back!
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I didn’t use all the shoots and I let two continue to grow and was used this week in a Baccalao dish

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Ingredients in the Udo Baccalao dish including odds and ends left in the cellar, forced dandelion (top right), Jerusalem artichokes, Udo, chicories, turnips, Tragopogon, burdock, leeks and carrots
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Forced blanched dandelions with flower buds
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Assembling the baccalao with Udo on top

Solstice sweet and sour soup greens

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Tonight’s greens: Sea kale(strandkål), Scorzonera (scorsonnerot), Allium senescens, Sweet cicely (spansk kjørvel), Giant bellflower (storklokke), Sorrel / surblad, Nettle (nesle), Dandelion (løvetann)
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Sea kale(strandkål) flowering tops are delicious
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Scorzonera (scorsonnerot) tops are also delicious and sweet tasting
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Allium senescens hybrid
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Sweet cicely (spansk kjørvel) flowering tops (the flower stems need to be removed as they are woody) are also sweet.
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Giant bellflower (storklokke) tops are also sweetish
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Sorrel (surblad) leaves from my patch of 6 Russian cultivars

Somebody once said that solstice greens are the best…I’d add that solstice perennial greens are even better :) Here’s what I used in tonight’s soup: Sea kale(strandkål), Scorzonera (scorsonnerot), Allium senescens, Sweet cicely (spansk kjørvel), Giant bellflower (storklokke), Sorrel / surblad, Nettle (nesle), Dandelion (løvetann) (all are in my book)…and I almost forgot that there’s chickweed (vassarve) in there too, perennial in that it’s there every year!

Visiting Camilla Plum

On 2nd May 2016 I finally got to visit Camilla Plum and Fuglebjerggaard. Camilla is one of Scandinavia’s best known authors and broadcasters on edible gardening and cooking. It was such a beautiful day that the formal talk was abandoned in favour of an edible tour of the organic nursery and farm lead by myself and Camilla. A great crowd of knowledgeable folk, some of whom had travelled quite a long way including one couple from Norway! Thanks for inviting me Camilla!! A great place and many must-have plants :)

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Camilla in front of a large bed of emerging Ostrich Ferns which were obviously thriving in this open location as shoots were popping up in the grass around the bed!

 

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Wool mulch
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Perennial kales
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One of the 80 in my book is Allium obliquum, twistedleaf garlic from Siberia! I’d never seen it growing on this scale before.
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This form of Allium obliquum had beautiful purple stems and was also on sale on the nursery.
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Nursery
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Edible perennials
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What was happening here? Camilla had asked staff to go down into this swampy pit to collect rhizomes and young shoots of a plant known in North America as the Supermarket of the swamps… 
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Harvesting salad ingredients :)
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Large selection of chilis!
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Large selection of chilis!
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Yellow flowered Allium moly is a great edible onion for partiual shade in the forest garden! Not often you see this one on sale, although supermarket chain Lidl were selling bulbs this autumn!
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Hop clones after Danish breeder Øyvind Winge, now made available in the nursery. I remember seeing these in the hop collection at Årslev…
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DAHLIAS!
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Hop-Asparagus!
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Perennial kales
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…and Lathyrus tuberosus
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Scorzonera
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Tulbaghia or Society Garlic from South Africa
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Wonderful lunch with ostrich fern, fried dandelion flower buds with salt and a lovely salad with tulip petals!
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Mushroom plant, Rungia klossii from Papua New Guinea is a novel salad plant

 

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Permaveggies Course Day 3: Ostrich fern tour along the Homla

As usual, the highlight of these weekends is the incredible walk along the river Homla just 20 minutes from home with large quantities of Ostrich Fern along the way, truly one of Norway’s most beautiful plants and also most delicious!!

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Storfossen (literally large waterfall!), the second highest waterfall at 40m in our region (Trøndelag). There’s a total fall of 80m in 3 waterfalls. If you’re lucky you can see salmon trying to climb the lowest of the 3!
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Participants showering in the drizzle from the waterfall stood in awe of this wonderfull sight, so close to Trondheim, but hardly known! We saw only a handful of other people on the trail in 4 hours!

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We found a few fungi. This is Fomitopsis pinicola / rødrandkjuke

Basidioradulum radula (Tannsopp), earlier classified with the Hedgehog fungi!

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Christian thinking about going for a swim?

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Happy participants, HIGH on nature and wild food!
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Happy participants, HIGH on nature and wild food!
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This dandelion was collected as it had a good mild taste!
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Ostrich fern / Strutseving
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Ostrich fern / Strutseving
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One of the confusion species that shouldn’t be eaten! With Anemone nemerosa (wood anemone / hvitveis) and Chrysosplenium alternifolium (Golden saxifrage/maigull)
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Roof garden!

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There’s a lot of up and downs along the 4 hour walk (with stops) from Storfossen to Hommelvik!

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Everyone stopped in awe again at this beautiful rich stand of ostrich ferns which had come much further than in the cold air by the river
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We found this Swede communing with the ferns
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…Berit had a go too…next year we will have a group ostrich fern hug I think!

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Hidden among the ferns are other edibles like nettle / nesle and giant bellflower (Campanula latifolia)

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Fomitopsis pinicola / rødrandkjuke

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The field horsetail/ common horsetail / kjerringrokk / (Equisetum arvense) is another sign of spring. The plant is known as sugina (杉菜) in Japanese, literally “cryptomeria vegetable”, possibly from the appearance of the green stems. The fertile stems at the stage shown are known as tsukushi (土筆). The ideograms literally mean “soil brush”, based on their shape. A common foraged vegetable in spring!! DON’T plant it in your garden, it is one of the most invasive plants on open land! BUT, one shouldn’t use large amounts…this is a spring vegetable used in a short period in spring!!
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Knuskkjuke (Fomes fomentarius) is the tinder fungus used to start a fire!
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Upon returning home we made a green pasta sauce with ostrich ferns (cooked for 15 minutes), Hablitzia shoots, Norrlands onion (see my book) for all 3), soaked dried chantarelles, organic tomatoes, garlic, chili, seasoned with cuban oregano, bay leaves and served over a choice of hemp pasta and emmer wheat pasta from Etikken in Trondheim!

 

 

 

Norwegian sansai

Good to be back from Japan to Norwegian sansai (foraged vegetables)….
From top left, left to right: Angelica archangelica “Vossakvann”, various dandelions / løvetann (Taraxacum), Rumex patientia (patience dock/hagesyre), Garlic bulbil shoots (forced indoors), ground elder / skvallerkål, Rheum palmatum (petiole), Rumex acetosa (sorrel / engsyre), Myrrhis odorata (with root ; sweet cicely / spansk kjørvel), chervil / hagekjørvel, Campanula latifolia (giant bellflower / storklokke), horseradish / pepperrot ( shoot), Anredera cordifolia (Madeira vine; grown inside), Alliaria petiolata ( garlic mustard / løkurt), Hemerocallis (daylily/daglilje), Ranunculus ficaria (lesser celandine / vårkål), Urtica dioica (nettle / nesle), Allium senescens x nutans, Hablitzia tamnoides (Hablitzia, Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde)…made into a stir fry with soba (buckwheat pasta)

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