Wild Garlic Pesto Recipe

It's the brief season for wild garlic (aka ramsons or bear's garlic, Allium ursinum), and I'm excited. I only discovered wild garlic a year ago (see post here), and have been looking forward to them again.

There's a plentiful supply of wild garlic near our house, and early last week I picked some* to make some wild garlic recipes I had spotted elsewhere or 'created' myself. So far I've made the same cucumber and wild garlic salad mentioned last year; a delicious cold tzatziki sauce (wild garlic, cucumber, sour cream, salt); one cold sauce to accompany simple boiled potatoes (wild garlic, cornichons, kefir milk); and this delicious pesto recipe.

The idea behind the pesto is simple. If your usual Pesto Genovese is basil + garlic + parmesan cheese + pine nuts, then instead of basil and garlic I decided to use mild-tasting wild garlic instead. It was a very successful substitution indeed, and I'll be certainly making it again next year.

Have you tried wild garlic before? And what's your favourite use for this delicious wild food?

* Karulauk on Eestis III kategooria kaitsealune taim. Karulaugu korjamine isiklikuks kasutamiseks määral, mis ei ohusta liigi säilimist antud elupaigas, on lubatud; rangelt on keelatud looduslikust kasvukohast korjatud karulauguga kauplemine.

Wild Garlic Pesto
(Karulaugupesto)
Makes 200 ml



100 g wild garlic, rinsed, drained and chopped
50 g toasted pine nuts
150 ml extra virgin olive oil
50 g parmesan cheese, grated
Maldon sea salt, to taste

Place chopped wild garlic and toasted pine nuts into a blender, add about 1/3 of the olive oil and puree until smooth. Stir in the rest of the oil and the grated cheese, season to taste with salt.

Serve with pasta (see above) or stir into your risotto. Keeps covered in the fridge for about a week.

* Toasting pine nuts: heat pinenuts of a hot dry frying pan for a few minutes, shaking the pan regularly, until the nuts are golden brown and aromatic. Cool before use.

WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Anh of Food Lover's Journey. Click on the logo below for more information about this foodblogging event started by Kalyn.

'Egg mushrooms' for kids and adults alike

First of all, thank you for all your kind wishes on my birthday - you're too sweet!

And what a lovely birthday I had. On Thursday (the actual b-day), K. and I had a yet another fantastic meal at Stenhus in Tallinn. On Friday I had some 20 friends (incl. few kids) for a birthday party at our home, and today our families came for Sunday lunch. Friday's party was Spanish-themed, today I served a number of typical Estonian party snacks, and I'll tell you more about them in due course. But I wanted to share this happy and bright photo with you.

I suspect you all know about this particular party piece consisting of boiled eggs and halved scooped tomatoes? Yes? No? It's in a classic Estonian children's cookbook published in mid-1980s, so most 'kids' of my age are familiar with this.

But I knew it would be even better in mini format, so I tried this version. Instead of regular chicken eggs and medium-sized tomatoes, I chose quail eggs and cherry vine tomatoes. My nephews - and the rest of the family - loved popping them into their mouth, so I'll be making the mini version from now on.

Here's how (just in case you didn't know already).

Quail Egg and Cherry Tomato 'Amanita muscaria' Mushrooms
('Kärbseseened' lastelauale)

Boil some quail eggs (say 10) for 2 minutes, cool and peel them.
Halve 5 ripe cherry tomatoes, scoop out the seeds and let them drain on a kitchen paper for a few minutes.
Cut some fresh dill or parsley and scatter on a serving plate.
Now cut a very thin slice off the bottom of the quail eggs, and stand them on top of the finely chopped herbs.
Place half of a tomato on top of each quail egg.
Sprinkle with Maldon salt flakes or dot with mayonnaise for that Amanita muscaria* effect :)

* Amanita muscaria aka fly agaric mushrooms are of course poisonous and inedible, but they are some of the the prettiest mushrooms in the forests with their bright red caps and white flecked tops. Kids here learn early on to avoid these when forageing for wild mushrooms.

It's this time of the year again ...

Usually I would have this cake today. But as we're not having a party until tomorrow and tonight we're having dinner in this favourite restaurant of ours, we gave the cake a miss today. K. made me these yummy pancakes for breakfast instead, which we enjoyed with a delicious wild strawberry jam sent over to me by his mum (she keeps a jar for every birthday, you see).

Wish you a lovely day, everyone...

PS It's my birthday today, not K's :)