Foraging For Wild Garlic
The wild garlic season is just starting to kick off! I say this with enthusiasm because it’s my favourite wild herb to forage. It’s so easy to forage, you’ll find it in damp wooded areas and you’ll usually smell it before you see it. Garlic has a wonderful pungent aroma, though it is not as heavy or pungent as garlic cloves. The leaves are glossy green with a broad leaf and white, star-shaped flowers. When you do come upon a patch of wild garlic, pick as many as you can as there are so many ways to use it and you can freeze what you don’t use.
Once I have gathered a big bag of the wild herb, I begin with making a large jar of wild garlic pesto – which I use to serve with roast fish, chicken, spring lamb cutlets, pasta or as a dip with spring vegetable crudités. It’s so simple to make. Place 300g wild garlic leaves, zest of one lemon, 50g toasted pine nuts, 200ml olive oil and 50g grated parmesan cheese into a food processor and blend for a minute until you have a smooth but still chunky texture. Next, I make a batch of wild garlic butter to use when cooking fish or chicken, or for a homemade garlic sourdough bread. Other delicious ways to cook with it are simply folded into an omelette, salad, scrambled eggs or wilted down with some butter (like you would spinach).
