So realising that there may be a need for some garlic in December when I get round to making my Christmas dinner, I ventured into a couple patches of woodland to pick wild garlic - the first natural crop of the year.
Wild Garlic, or Ramsons to give them their proper name, is a plant that you will inevitably come across before even if you haven't noticed it. They grow in moist soils in or at the edge of deciduous woodlands, often near bluebells, and are unmistakable due to their garlic aroma wafting in the air.
All of the plant is edible. The leaves can be used in salads, or boiled as a vegetable, the flowers an attractive and powerfully flavoured addition to a plate. The bulb (which is more like a spring onion than a garlic bulb) is edible raw or cooked, but it is illegal to dig them up without the landowners permission, and if on public land, you simply are not allowed to dig them up at all. You can however collect the seeds from the pods in early summer (edible also), and can also buy bulbs from certified sources if you want to grow them yourself.
WARNING Ramsons are very similar in appearance to poisonous, and possibly deadly, plants including Lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis), Colchicum autumnale and Arum aculatum but a there is a simple test that can be done to check what you are picking. Ramsons are the only leaf that, when crushed between your fingers, smells of garlic. There are also differences in the way the plants are presented, with differences to the flowers and stems. Click here for further information.
I decided to make pesto with my first crop of the season, jarring some for immediate use and freezing some to use throughout the rest of the year and, of course, at Christmas. When making this, it is important that you make sure that any remaining pesto in the jar is covered with olive oil to seal it from the air, and keep it in the fridge. The fresh pesto will last about three weeks and comes from The River Cottage website.
The Theory
100g Wild Garlic Leaves
50g Mild Onions or leeks
50g Pine nuts, walnuts, brazil nuts - anything really
200ml Oil - Olive, sunflower or rapeseed
50g Finely grated hard cheese - Parmesan
Pinch of salt
Pinch of sugar
After you have thrown away any tough stalks, damaged leaves and washed the leaves, blitz the leaves, onions, nuts and 3/4 of the oil in a food processor until everything is finely chopped. Fold in the cheese, salt and sugar and then put into sterilised jars. Press down firmly with the back of a spoon to remove any pockets of air (words like botulism appear in warnings) and cover with a layer of oil. If you want to freeze it, put it into small containers and freeze immediately.
Even I can't mess this one up thought I! I picked the garlic and tested every plant that I picked from just to make sure that I wasn't going to kill myself with toxic leaves. Then once home, I started picking out all the leaves which were broken or covered in bird poop was the first task, which although time consuming was quite rewarding. I had some walnuts in my cupboard, but any non-salted nuts will do, and instead of using the spring onions I used half an onion that I'd left over from making onion gravy. Oil is fortunately one of the ingredients exempt from my budget, so I just used the olive oil I had, but what to do about the cheese? Cheese is a big chunk of my budget, so what could I do? Well, I found that I had some dried out parmesan in the fridge. It meant putting a little more elbow grease into grating it, and the rind was equally useable in this dish, so that went in too. Cheese for nothing - perfect!
The one thing I did notice was that when you have all the ingredients laid out before you, there is a reluctance to accept that this is supposed to fill five 200g jars. Still, persevere I did and I rapidly found out that my blender is no good for making pesto. A food processor is a nice simple gadget - a big blade in a big based jug. A small blade in a tapered jug resulted in me picking the damn thing up and giving it a good shake to knock the remaining leaves down to the blade of the blender. A few swear words later, I had something that resembled pesto, so I mixed in the cheese and filled the jars. I was right, the measurements for this do not fill five 200g jars, it fills two and a small amount that I popped in a bag and put in the freezer for Christmas.
Despite the farcical behaviour with my blender, and the fact that this recipe only makes half the amount it was supposed to, I'd say it was a success. I have two small jars of wild garlic pesto to use over the next three weeks - perfect for some springtime pasta.
Further harvesting...
I decided to harvest some more ramsons a little later on and rather than make a pesto I simply blitzed the leaves with a little olive oil and then froze them into small ice cubes. I'll be using these to add a gentle garlic flavour into cooking in the winter.
Further harvesting...
I decided to harvest some more ramsons a little later on and rather than make a pesto I simply blitzed the leaves with a little olive oil and then froze them into small ice cubes. I'll be using these to add a gentle garlic flavour into cooking in the winter.
