”Here we go again! 3 things to do with wild garlic. Honestly I have so much more than 3 so this is a 3 part series covering techniques to make the most of this abundant ingredient.
GeorgeFlavour Fred
Wild Garlic is very popular and in this 3 part series I'll be posting methods to make most of it at home!
WILD GARLIC PESTO
The classic recipe wild garlic season. I love making pesto regularly and it’s always best freshly made. Personally I prefer to add a few other leaves in the mix to balance it out a bit. As wild garlic can be a little too fiery all by itself.
RECIPE
A good handful wild garlic wash and dried with a bit of mint & 5 tips of the freshest shoots of lemon balm. After which put the following ingredients and blend to your desired consistency.
10g nutritional yeast
150ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil
50g toasted pine nuts
Juice of 1 lemon
Seasoning
Serving with gnocchi, on pizza or roasted vegetables is my personal preference.
WILD GARLIC BUTTER FOR FREEZING
Here I make a simple butter for freezing and I love it as it’s such a quick process. And to be honest adding in extra ingredients and having a wild garlic butter on call is a welcome boost when cooking.
WILD GARLIC SAUERKRAUT
Whenever I collect wild garlic I also collect enough to make a ferment. It’s certainly a great starting point for thinking about fermented wild food and lacto-fermentation in general.
This is a simple process of cleaning your ingredients, sterilising storage jars and getting water on to boil. I use a 3.5% brine which means for 1000ml of water I use 35g of salt. I often do a dry ferment too but this process just works for many other ingredients than just wild garlic so suits me for simplicity . Once the water boils I add the salt , dissolve and leave to cool. In that period the jars have been sterilised, wild garlic washed and bruised ready to add into the jars. Fill the jar with the cooled brine. After this it simply ferments nicely in a cupboard or outdoors away from direct sunlight for a month or even longer if you want (I often put in the fridge at this stage). Packed with probiotics and preserved for later in the year it’s a simple process to embrace. Although I now sponsor Kilner jars it seems ….
When collecting foraged ingredients there often is a glut so I need 3 ways to use ingredients to make the most of them. That said do be respectful of the environment you are in. Not just in the quantity collected but also respecting the growth of other plants as well as the animals that live in and around where you collect from.
