Ways To Enjoy Delicious (and Free!) Wild Garlic
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Wild garlic is frequently known as ramsons, formally as allium ursinum and occasionally as bear’s garlic (because it has been popular with brown bears), jack-by-hedge, buckrams, broad-leaved garlic, wood garlic, devil’s garlic, stinking Jenny and gypsy’s onions. Some of these names don’t do it justice because It Is Yummy with a wonderful kind of a mild garlic-chive taste.
You will find wild garlic in damp, shady places, woodland, forests, some hedgerows. It often grows alongside bluebells which makes your foraging trip even lovelier! Wild garlic season runs from mid to late March (depending where you live) till early May.
How to Identify Wild Garlic
Look for the fresh green leaves in March, they won’t be in flower till somewhat later when the leaves are darker. They will be easy to find, whole area will probably smell of garlic! Having said that, occasionally wild garlic has been confused with lily of the valley which is poisonous so, when picking, just make sure it is wild garlic by rubbing a leaf between your fingers and having a sniff – it should clearly smell of garlic.
Every part of wild garlic is edible including the bulbs, but they are tiny and not really worth the effort! Foraging for wild garlic is legal in the UK so long as you don’t dig the plant up.
Last year was the first time I had ever picked wild garlic and I was ecstatic! Lovely, fresh, delicious and free food! I have been looking forward to this year’s crop ever since and yesterday picked a carrier bag full.
Firstly, as hopefully you have gathered quite a lot here’s …
How to Freeze Wild Garlic
~ Wash and dry the leaves and chop in a food processor together with a thin drizzle of olive oil to help it along.
~ Spoon the result into ice cube trays.
~ Freeze, tightly wrapped to stop other things in the freezer tasting garlicky.
Scroll down for how to use frozen wild garlic.
How to Use Frozen Wild Garlic …
~ Stir into soups and sauces
~ Add a cube when deglazing a pan to make a delicious pan sauce sauce for meat or fish.
~ Stir into polenta for the last few minutes of cooking. See Fungi/Polenta Recipe here.
~ Mash into potatoes.
~ Stir into risotto.
A Trail of Leftovers!
I couldn’t get every scrap of the precious stuff out of the food processor and you know how I hate waste so I added a spoonful of cider vinegar, a pinch of sugar plus salt and pepper and some more olive oil and made …
~ Wild Garlic Vinaigrette (see here for lots more vinaigrette recipes). I poured this into a jug to dress my salad for dinner.
~ The food processor still looked a little unfinished so, still hating waste, I wiped it out with a piece of salmon which was intended for my dinner.
~ I didn’t eat all my dinner so I munged together leftover salmon and mashed potato and a teaspoonful of my Wild Garlic Pesto – below. I formed an admittedly large fishcake, pressed it onto a plate of panko, shallow fried till crisp and went for it.
How to use Fresh Wild Garlic …
~ Add the leaves and flowers to salads.
~ Garnish dishes with the flowers – they are both pretty and edible!
~ Sprinkle chopped leaves onto all sorts of dishes.
~ Add to omelettes and scrambled eggs.
~ Make Wild Garlic Butter which is lovely to cook shrimp or similar in!
~ Keep the flowers in a vase on the kitchen windowsill amongst all the rest of the paraphernalia. Don’t worry, they don’t make a smell!
Penne Pasta in Wild Garlic Alfredo
This is easy, just add shredded wild garlic to Alfredo Sauce, toss with freshly cooked pasta and top with some lovely crunchy pangrattato.
Wild Garlic & Walnut Pesto
20g wild garlic leaves (well washed – you know what doggies are like in the woods!)
30g grated Parmesan
20g walnuts
75ml olive oil plus a bit more
~ Bung everything except the olive oil in the food processor and run on slow whilst gradually adding the 75ml of olive oil.
~ When finely chopped and mixed together up the speed a little and process to a coarse purée.
~ Taste and season.
~ Spoon into a clean jam jar, pour a little extra olive oil on the surface to seal and put the lid on.
~ Keep in the fridge.
How to Use Wild Garlic Pesto …
~ Stir into mayonnaise.
~ Whisk in vinegar or lemon juice and more oil to make a great salad dressing.
~ Rub onto meat and fish as a marinade and leave a few hours before cooking.
~ Just toss with freshly pasta for a yummy simple dish.
~ Drizzle over sliced tomatoes.
~ Garnish soup with a spoonful or a drizzle.
~ Spread into sandwiches and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Happy Foraging!
Suzy Bowler
Having been a somewhat itinerant chef for over 30 years I was amazed, on my return to the UK, at the blatant food waste that now seems to be rife in the country; amazed and irritated. So much so that I decided to start a blog about spontaneous cooking from leftovers to show people that there are great alternatives to throwing food away.
