Wild garlic pesto aka ramson pesto recipe

(From the recipe archives - originally posted in April 2011. Three years on, this is still my favourite way of preparing wild garlic pesto. You can use either ramson or ramps).

Wild garlic has arrived! Wild garlic, also known as ramson or bear's garlic (Allium ursinum, 'karulauk' in Estonian), is a very close relative to the wild leek aka ramp (Allium tricoccum, 'grislilauk' in Estonian). I've been eagerly waiting for this spring green, as I love both the flavour and the versatily of it, and it's a good health-booster at this time of the year. Well, if it's good enough for big brown bears, it's good enough for us :D

Although I've been happily making a wild garlic pesto with pinenuts for a few years now, this one is a new favourite. There's more flavour, and somehow it's much more gutsier than the 'regular' wild garlic pesto. The idea to use almonds instead of pinenuts in a wild garlic pesto is from a German food magazine. I've upped the amount of almonds and cheese, and used regular almonds instead of blanched.

Let me tell you - this was a huge hit at my recent birthday brunch, where the guests were spreading it on thin slices of ciabatta. I'm heading to my secret wild garlic field later today, just so I could make this one again :)

You could definitely try this with ramps or even with garlic scapes. If you love garlic, you'll love this, I promise!

Other recipes using wild garlic/ramson @ Nami-Nami:
Wild garlic tzatziki
Wild garlic and potato mash
Wild garlic butter
Wild garlic pesto (with pinenuts)
Stuffed tomatoes with wild garlic salad

Wild garlic pesto / Ramson pesto
(Karulaugupesto mandlitega)
Makes about 200 ml



a good bunch of wild garlic (about 125 g), rinsed and drained
50 g Parmesan cheese, roughly chopped
50 g whole almonds
75 ml (5 Tbsp) extra virgin olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place almonds and cheese into a food processor and blitz into fine crumbs. Add wild garlic, process again until you've got a coarse pesto. Now add the oil little by little, with the machine still running.
Season with salt and pepper.

If you want to keep your pesto for a few weeks, then place into cool sterilised jars and pour a layer of olive oil on top. Keep in the fridge.

Wild Garlic Hummus Recipe

The wild garlic season has began here in Estonia. For almost a fortnight I see people foraging for the pungent wild leaves in a nearby forest, and I've been picking a small brown paper bag full of leaves twice myself. The other day I was browsing on Pinterest for lovely wild garlic ideas, and came across this lovely recipe for wild garlic hummus on Shaheen's blog Allotment2Kitchen.

I used my regular hummus recipe and simply added a generous handful of wild garlic leaves. The result was a vibrant green dip/spread, that had a wonderful garlicky element, but its Lebanese/Israeli heritage was still there.

Note that wild garlic is also known as ramson (Allium ursinum). It's closely related to wild leeks or ramps (Allium tricoccum). Very generally speaking, the first is common in Europe and the latter in North America. You can easily substitute one for the other in this (and other Nami-Nami's wild garlic recipes).

Wild Garlic Hummus 
(Karulauguhummus)
Serves four

400 g canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 handful fresh wild garlic leaves, rinsed
couple of spoonfuls of water
4 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Drain the chickpeas and place to the food processor with the rest of the ingredients. Blend until you've got a smooth paste (or slightly coarse, if that's how you prefer your houmous). Taste for seasoning - if you wish, add some more lemon juice or salt.

Excellent with toasted pita bread, or on a slice of toast, or spread on crispy crostini or as a dipping sauce with some crudités. We enjoyed ours with some Georgian bread, pictured.

More Wild Garlic recipes:
Wild Garlic Pesto with Almonds @ Nami-Nami
Wild Garlic Pesto with Pinenuts @ Nami-Nami
Wild Garlic Tzatziki @ Nami-Nami
Mashed Potatoes with Wild Garlic @ Nami-Nami
Wild Garlic Butter @ Nami-Nami
Ramson-Almond-Pesto  @ Küchenlatein
Creamy Wild Garlic Soup @ Cinnamon and Thyme
Wild garlic, courgette and mint soup by Angela Hartnett

More hummus recipes:
Harissa-spiked hummus @ Nami-Nami
Beetroot Hummus @ Nami-Nami
Hommus with pomegranate syrup and tahini @ Anissa Helou
Basil hummus @ Simply Recipes
Hummus en fuego @ 101 Cookbooks
Roasted jalapeno and lime hummus  @ The Kitchn
Beet Hummus @ Chocolate & Zucchini

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.

Wild garlic tzatziki aka Ramson tzatziki

I decided to give the ever-popular Greek condiment/salad, tzatziki, a seasonal makeover, using the wild garlic that grows just about 7 minutes from our house. I love the basic tzatziki - yogurt, fresh cucumber and finely chopped garlic. However, when trying to think of new ways of using my wild garlic bounty, it suddenly occured to me that it would make an excellent tzatziki. By simply substituting finely chopped wild garlic for garlic, you'll still get the garlic flavour, but with a twist and lots of extra colour.

Use as you would the regular tzatziki - for dipping, as a condiment or simply as one of the dishes on a spring-time Greek mezze platter. Healthy and really delicious!!!

Note that wild garlic = ramson = bear's garlic (Allium ursinum). If you live in Tallinn, you'll find bunches of wild garlic in all of the three markets (Keskturg, Balti jaama turg, Nõmme turg).

Wild garlic tzatziki
(Karulaugu tzatziki)
Serves 4



2 long or 6-8 short cucumbers
1 tsp salt
a large bunch of wild garlic
250 g plain (Greek) yogurt

Wash the cucumber and grate coarsely. Put on a colander, sprinkle with salt and let stand for 30 minutes.
Finely chop the wild garlic.
Mix wild garlic, drained cucumber and yogurt in a bowl, season with salt, if necessary.

You can vary the thickness of your tzatziki by using either a strained Greek yogurt (first photo) or ordinary plain yogurt (second photo).

Potato Mash with Wild Garlic

The wild garlic - also known as bear's garlic - is in season here in Estonia. The season is short, so I'm trying to eat as much as possible of this delicious and health-boosting spring green. Here's a simple way to incorporate wild garlic into your regular mash. Looks bright and pretty, doesn't it?

More wild garlic recipes @ Nami-Nami:
Wild garlic butter
Wild garlic pesto
Tomatoes stuffed with wild garlic

Potato Mash with Wild Garlic
(Kartulipuder karulauguga)
Serves 6

1 kg floury potatoes
200 ml (just under a cup) of milk, heated
50 g (2 Tbsp) butter
100 g fresh wild garlic, rinsed and finely chopped
1 tsp salt
0.25 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Peel the potatoes and cut into large chunks. Cover with fresh water, season with salt and bring to a boil. Boil for 15-20 minutes, until soft, then drain.
Return the saucepan to the hob and mash using whatever way you usually do it (I love to use my 'Spudnik' for that, which results in a rather coarse mash). Pour over the hot milk, add the butter and finely chopped wild garlic, and continue mashing and stirring, until you've got a bright green and fluffy potato mash.
Season with salt and pepper, stir thoroughly and serve.

Waiter, there's something (stuffed) in my ... tomatoes with two types of filling

Waiter, there is something in my ... - a wonderful food blogging event organised by Johanna, Jeanne & Andrew - has reached it's fifth instalment: stuffed fruit/vegetables, hosted by Jeanne.

My entry for this round is stuffed tomatoes with two kinds of salad fillings. It's not really a recipe, just a tip for serving nice small tomatoes. The first filling is a cod liver salad that I have written about before. The 'recipe' is my mum's, and this is how cod liver has been eaten in our family for decades. I thought that was the only way of serving this particular fishy preserve, until K simply put a canned cod liver on the table. Apparently his family simply spread the liver on a slice of bread, straight out of the can. I prefer my way, and as far as I've understood, have converted him, too :)

The other recipe for wild garlic & cucumber salad is from my local bus stop. Yes, you read it correctly - bus stop. I knew that wild garlic (Allium ursinum) grows somewhere in our neighbourhood, but I had never seen it wild, nor had I ever picked it. One late morning in early April I was standing in a bus stop, waiting for the bus to take me to town, and next to me were two elderly Russian-speaking women, or babushkas:) My Russian is very rusty, so I didn't understand much of what was said, but my sense of smell seems to work just fine, as I suddenly realised that something was smelling very fragrantly and faintly garlicky. I turned to the women and asked them about the smell, and they kindly showed me their bounty. Eventhough I had never seen 'uncooked' Allium ursinum in my life, I recognised the green leaves immediately from photos - it was wild garlic! I was given a large bunch to go with, and two recipes to boot. One of the women claimed that the best way to eat it is with some cucumber, sour cream, and salt & pepper. The other swore by wild garlic, boiled egg, sunflower oil, salt & pepper. As they both seemed to be very knowledgeable about wild garlic, I took their advice seriously and have been religiously following it. I can tell you that after I found the secret hidaway near my house, I've been eating a lot of the first salad since. I'm yet to try the other..

Stuffed tomatoes with two types of salad



about 20 small ripe, but firm tomatoes

Cod liver salad
(Tursamaksasalat)

1 can of cod liver chunks, drained (reserve the oil)
1 small shallot, chopped
1 pickled cucumber, finely chopped
1 boiled egg, chopped
salt
black pepper

Mix all the ingredients, add some of the reserved oil to make it moister, if you want.

Wild garlic & cucumber salad
(Karulaugu-kurgisalat)

a bunch of wild garlic, washed and roughly chopped
a small cucumber, washed, quartered or halved lenghtwise, and sliced
sour cream

Mix the cucumber, wild garlic and enough sour cream to bind everything together. Season with salt, if necessary (I haven't done it, as the salad has plenty of freshness and taste without any).

Now comes the tricky part. Halve the small tomatoes, scoop out the flesh and drain the juices. Stuff tomato halves with above-mentioned salads. Voila!

Other stuffed fruit & vegetables @ Nami-nami:
Baked red onions stuffed with mushrooms, feta cheese & pine nuts (March 2006)
Oven roasted pears with caramelised oats filling (November 2005)
Red peppers stuffed with spinach & mushrooms (April 2006)
Red peppers with cumin-scented halloumi cubes (November 2006)

Here are links to my previous Waiter there is something in my ... entries:
April 2007 (BREAD): a traditional Estonian quick mushroom bread, Seenekarask
March 2007 (EASTER BASKET): a selection of various Easter delights.
February 2007 (PIE): a great Russian puff pastry and fish pie, Salmon Kulebyaka.
January 2007 (STEW): my version (in collaboration with Anthony Bourdain:) of the French classic Boeuf Bourguignon.

UPDATE 1. June 2007: Read Jeanne's roundup here

Wild Garlic Butter Recipe

Wild garlic season is almost over, but I wanted to share another simple recipe for that wild plant. Need something zesty on your grilled steak? Want to lend garlicky flavour to your steamed spring vegetables? Fancy some toasted garlic (rye) bread?

Well, what about this wild garlic butter?

Wild Garlic Butter
(Karulauguvõi)
Yields 150 g

150 g butter, at room temperature
30 g wild garlic (about 20 leaves)
grated zest of 1 lemon
a generous pinch of Maldon sea salt

Wash and dry the wild garlic leaves, then chop very finely. Mix with soft butter and grated lemon zest, until combined. Season with salt.
Keeps in the fridge for a few days (can be successfully frozen).

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2014

Last Sunday we had a full house again. 28 people, including the kids, celebrating the Spring and enjoying the traditional Nami-Nami Easter brunch. It was a gorgeously sunny and pleasant day, and we ate al fresco.



First, the eggs. To be honest, we only dyed them after the party, but they're still part of the Easter brunch in a way. We used the Estonian way of dyeing eggs with onion skins (read all about it here) for the yellow-brown eggs, and frozen blueberries for the blue eggs. I think they turned out gorgeous, and the kids loved them!


Small rye cups were filled with salmon roe and sour cream (also known as creamy caviar dressing, recipe here).


Smoked fish salad, spiked with some horseradish (I used hot-smoked hake).


Ottolenghi's cucumber and poppyseed salad - always festive, yet simple to make. I omitted the sugar this time and didn't miss it at all!


Marinated fresh sprats from the Ristemäe talu stand at my local farmers' market, Viimsi Taluturg.


Pasta and sausage salad, very Estonian and always popular with older kids.


Puff pastry canapés with sun-dried tomato pesto and black olive filling.


Another view of the table.


Wild garlic is in season, so I made some crostini with ricotta and wild garlic spread, served with Estonian cured pork filet.


I did all the prep work on Sunday morning (the kids make sure we wake up rather early :)). However, I did slow-cook a huge Boston butt (2,5 kg) on the previous day, serving the pulled pork at the brunch. The recipe was adapted from this Finnish magazine.


Rosemary and Garlic Roasted Salmon a la In Sock Monkey Slippers. It was a huge salmon, so there was plenty for everybody.


Green fruit salad looked inviting and spring-like. I omitted the maple syrup, as the kiwis and grapes were sweet enough, and sprinkled some almond slices on top for some extra bite.

Over the years I've got better in delegating. Some friends brought imported strawberries, some oranges for the freshly squeezed orange juice, some brought wine. Some friends volunteered to bring food. And they brought some wonderful dishes.


My friend Liina baked a fantastic mutabak.


Piret brought along a typical Estonian mushroom salad (wild mushrooms, onion, sour cream, seasonings).


Our friend Kristiina makes wonderful salads, here's what she brought along this year.


And her husband Paavo baked a big batch of Swedish cardamom twists.


I had also made a small cake, namely gluten-free buckwheat hearts with mocha glaze. Our son Aksel is somewhat sensitive to wheat (and hazelnuts), so I try to make sure there's something on the table that doesn't make his skin all itchy. (If you need more buckwheat inspiration, then check out my buckwheat recipe board on Pinterest.)


Here's another look at the table:

We drank Prosecco and various wines, cold-brewed hibiscus water (the bottle on the left) and black aronia cordial (the jug on the right). Coffee and tea later.

What did you have for Easter? I'd love to hear more in the comments!

See overviews of our previous Easter brunches:


Easter brunch 2013, featuring blood orange Mimosas, avocado and smoked salmon salad, cucumber bites with cream cheese, small tattie scone rounds with smoked salmon mousse, deviled beet eggs,  chorizo meatballs, a great carrot and cream cheese cake, roasted cauliflower, and much more.
 
Easter brunch 2012, featuring crostini with dill-marinated pork tenderloin, Ms Marmite Lover's focaccia shots, marinated olives, Estonian mushroom salad, cold-smoked salmon, a delicious paskha, cardamon-scented apricot and curd cheese cake, and much more.

Easter brunch 2011, featuring a pretty (imitation) snow crab salad, beet quail eggs, two types of home-made Estonian cheese "sõir", smoked salmon with horseradish dip, wild garlic (ramp) pesto with almonds, crostini with white cheese and red onion jam, puff pastry rolls with feta, white bean salad with  chorizo, Limoncello, coconut and white chocolate tart.

Easter brunch 2010, featuring spinach and hot-smoked salmon salad with quail eggs, green beans and asparagus, Marika Blossfeldt's quinoa salad with beets and fennel, savory cheesecake with goat cheese and chives, Ottolenghi's cucumber salad with poppyseeds, bean salad with lemon and parsley, Baltic herring with cherry tomatoes and herbs, Estonian home-made cheese "sõir", paskha, traditional Simnel cake, and another cake with coconut, lemon curd, elderflower cream and lemon balm.

Easter brunch 2009, featuring bright green pea soup shots, zucchini rolls stuffed with goat cheese, hazelnuts, figs and mint, peppered beef fillet, marbled beetroot eggs and marbled turmeric eggs, layered surimi "crab" and egg salad, pineapple carpaccio with mint sugar, matcha madeleines, and two different paskhas.

We also hosted Easter brunches in 2007 and 2008, but somehow I didn't document their properly. I can see on Flickr what was on the table back in 2007, but that's about it.

From the (future) archives:

We've hosted an Easter brunch for friends annually since 2007 (I moved back home to Estonia and in with K. from Scotland in October 2006, so it's 'our thing'). I see I have a lot of catching up to do :)

• Easter brunch 2024
• Easter brunch 2022 - just a small family gathering for a change
• Easter brunch 2015
• Easter brunch 2014
• Easter brunch 2013
• Easter brunch 2012 
• Easter brunch 2011
• Easter brunch 2010
• Easter brunch 2009
• Easter brunch 2008
• Easter brunch 2007

 

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2011

This year the Easter Brunch coincided with my birthday on April 24th, so I had a hard task of designing a menu that would celebrate Easter, spring and my birthday :) Here's what I served - something light, something green and something yellow - to go with my typical Easter menu.

Snow crab (surimi) salad:


Quail eggs dyed with beetroot:


Home-made wild garlic cheese and home-made caraway cheese (sõir)
 

Smoked salmon (ordered from MEKK restaurant), served with creamy horseradish cream


Wild garlic pesto with almonds:


Crostini with white cheese and onion marmalade


Puff pastry rolls with feta


Cannellini beans with tomatoes and onions:


Limoncello, coconut and white chocolate tart:


Paskha (sorry, no photo for some reason)

The guests brought along some Estonian rye bread, fresh strawberries (imported, of course) and the drinks (Prosecco, white wine, sea-buckthorn juice, freshly squeezed orange juice, water).

From the (future) archives:

We've hosted an Easter brunch for friends annually since 2007 (I moved back home to Estonia and in with K. from Scotland in October 2006, so it's 'our thing'). I see I have a lot of catching up to do :)

• Easter brunch 2024
• Easter brunch 2022 - just a small family gathering for a change
• Easter brunch 2015
• Easter brunch 2014
• Easter brunch 2013
• Easter brunch 2012 
• Easter brunch 2011
• Easter brunch 2010
• Easter brunch 2009
• Easter brunch 2008
• Easter brunch 2007

A Wild Mushroom Meatloaf Recipe for the National Meatloaf Appreciation Day

The good people over at Serious Eats: A Food Blog & Community have declared coming Friday the National Meatloaf Appreciation Day. I take the 'national' here to mean 'US American', but assume that foodblogging is a borderless activity and they accept my humble Estonian submission, too. Here's a meatloaf I made few months ago. I wanted to blog about it in Spring, I did, as it was a really tasty meatloaf. However, I used some spring mushrooms that according to all Estonian, Finnish & Swedish mushroom experts classify as 'delicious eating mushrooms' (and I've got no reason to doubt the expertise of region's mushroom guidebooks), but by Northern American mushroom guides should be avoided at any cost*. I didn't want my Northern American readers to worry about me, so I didn't post about the meatloaf back then :) However, as you can use any other spring, summer or autumn mushrooms here (morels would be especially suitable because of their visual appeal), I figure the recipe is ready for revealing on this blog :)

UPDATE 19.10.2007: Click here to read the roundup over at Serious Eats!

Spring Mushroom Meatloaf
(Hakklihavorm kevadseentega)



250 grams fresh spring mushrooms (morels are perfect)
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 Tbsp fine breadcrumbs
100 ml single cream
500 grams minced meat (a mixture of pork & beef)
1 egg
2 tsp Herbes de Provence herb mixture
1.5 tsp salt
0.5 tsp black pepper
a bunch of fresh parsley or wild garlic**, chopped

** If you're using wild garlic, then you can reduce the amount of garlic in the recipe

Clean the mushrooms and leave whole, if they're not too large.
Heat the oil on a frying pan, add mushrooms and saute on a low heat for about 5 minutes, until some of the liquid evaporates.
Add the onion and garlic, saute for another 7-10 minutes. Put aside to cool.
Mix cream with breadcrumbs, leave to puff up for 5 minutes. Then add egg, seasoning and minced meat. Mix until combined.
Spoon half of the meat mixture into a greased small loaf tin/terrine form. Top with mushroom & onion mixture, then cover with the rest of the meat mixture.
Bake in the middle of 200 C oven for about 45 minutes, covering the meatloaf with a piece of foil half-way through the baking.
Serve hot with steamed vegetables. Cold meatloaf is excellent when thinly sliced on top of sandwich.

* The mushroom in question is Ptychoverpa bohemica alias wrinkled thimble-cap, known as kurrel in Estonian, poimukellomörsky in Finnish, Vindlad klockmurkla in Swedish, Böhmische Glocken-Morchel/Runzel-Verpel in German, сморчковая шапочка in Russian. You can see a picture here (it's a morel on the left, thimble-cap on the right).

Wild thing or aspirational asparagus for Weekend Herb Blogging

Aah, the markets in Paris! Last Sunday morning we wandered at the noisy and buzzing Richard Lenoir Market near Bastille and were admiring the endless long rows of stalls selling skinned rabbits, huge fish and various cuts of meat, neatly piled luscious fruit and veg, and more fresh herbs you'd be able to learn the names of. This being early May, the market had also plenty of asparagus in all shape and form - white (some very fat white ones at that!), green and wild. Whereas I've been roasting green asparagus in my kitchen just recently, and have eaten white asparagus on several occasions, the wild - asperge sauvage in French - was new to me. So in addition to a large bunch of fresh bay leaves, I also got two bunches of wild asparagus to take back to Edinburgh.

Apparently wild asparagus is endemic to coastal areas of Western Europe, especially Belgium, Britain (found mainly in Dorset, Cornwall, Glamorgan and Pembrokeshire), the Channel Islands, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands. Although it has been previously thought of as a sub-species (Asparagus officinalis ssp. prostratus) to garden asparagus (Asparagus officinalis ssp. officinalis), then recent research seems to suggest that it's a separate species altogether and has been granted a Latin name of its own - Asparagus prostratus. The 'prostratus' in the name implies that wild asparagus stems grow prostrately - the Dutch call the plant 'liggende asperge', for instance. The taste is definitely like a delicate version of green asparagus - very pleasant and light. Here are my two dishes using this new-found gem of a vegetable.

Wild Asparagus at its simplest
(Metsik spargel, lihtsalt või ja meresoolaga)



This 'dish' is inspired by David Lebovitz's post about Paris Organics. The vendor told me (well, my date K. actually, as sadly I speak no French) to boil the asparagus for 5 minutes. David steams his, but I followed his instructions about serving the asparagus - simply dotted with butter and seasoned with Maldon sea salt flakes. Delicious!!! (Very good, if somewhat messy, fingerfood:)

Wild Asparagus with pasta and garlic
(Makaronid metsiku spargli ja kreemja küüslaugukastmega)



Take enough pasta of your choice (I used boccoletti, but might use spaghetti next time) - boil in a generous amount of salted water until al dente.

Meanwhile, blanch wild asparagus in salted boiling water for one minute, then drain thoroughly and cut into shorter pieces (or leave whole if using spaghetti).
Heat a generous splash of olive oil in a frying pan and add some finely sliced garlic. Fry gently for a minute, without letting the garlic to brown.
Add the wild asparagus and sauté for a couple of minutes.
Add some cream (single/whipping/double - whatever you prefer) and heat through. Remember you're aiming for just a light coating of creamy sauce for your pasta, so use less cream than you think you need!
Season with black pepper.

When your pasta is cooked, drain it and throw into your sauce. Stir to combine and serve with some parmesan cheese.

Tagged with Asparagus Aspirations (hosted by Kevin of Seriously Good - read his round-up here) and Weekend Herb Blogging (this time hosted by Ilva of Lucullian Delights - read her round-up here)

UPDATE 6.2.2007: just spotted this post on wild asparagus over at Hungry in Hogtown.

It's a wild thing: hortapita or a Greek pie with wild greens

On a gorgeous Sunday in early May K. and I walked along the paths of my - sorry, our - childhood summers. Literally. And during that walk, we packed a small linen bag with young ground elder leaves. You see, ever since buying the book on the culinary use of wild herbs & weeds few months ago, I've been discovering new edible wild plants galore. Eating dandelion greens is almost conservative now. I've turned dandelion blossoms into dark and sticky syrup, thrown milk thistle leaves into my salads, and yes, eaten enough wild garlic leaves to provide me with vitamins for months, and yes, even made a pie out of ground-elder. I can see that not everybody gets excited about stuff like that - even my 87-year old grandmother was a bit suspicious of me collecting these weeds for human consumption. But luckily K. is very supportive, and doesn't mind being fed one 'interesting' dish after another.

Ground-elder (Aegopodium podagraria, also known as bishop's weed and goutweed in English, naat in Estonian) has a long history of being used for medicinal purposes, but it was also cultivated as a food crop in the Middle Ages, especially in Russia (and in Siberia in particular - the Russian Saint Seraphim of Sarov is said to have survived three years on eating mainly ground-elder while on self-exposed exile in a deep forest), Scandinavia, in Central Europe. Old Finno-Ugric peoples were keen consumers of ground elder, too. According to some sources, old traders wrapped their vegetables into ground elder leaves to keep them fresh looking and smelling - the leaves are high in essential oils and helped to keep the other produce fresh and aromatic, too. Young and tender ground-elder leaves can be added to soups, omelettes and stews. Blanched leaves can be mixed with cottage cheese and curd cheese. The leaves are high on Vitamin E, as well as vitamin C, they're rich in antioxidants, minerals, flavonoids and fibre. Dishes containing ground elder are easily digestible, and have cleansing properties - so they're good for that spring-time detoxing :)


A hortapita in Portaria, June 2006

I decided to make hortapita with my ground elder leaves. The wise Greek village women, you see, have been using wild greens - horta - for culinary purposes forever. I enjoyed hortapita in a shady cafe in Portaria (see the photo above) during my 2006 trip to Greece. Its slightly more elegant and modern version - spanakopita - is one of my favourite pies. Using my ground elder bounty for a Greek hortapita seemed like the most logical thing to do. The Greek villagers would use lots of other wild and bitter leaves for making hortopita (and other dishes too, obviously, like salads etc). Amaranth (vlita in Greek, one of the most popular horta's - rebashein), sow thistle (tsochos / piimaohakas), stinging nettles (tsouknithes / kõrvenõges), mallow (molocha / kassinaeris), dandelion, purslane ( glistrida or andrakles / portulak), wild carrots, as well as more familiar chicory, sorrel, mustard greens, rocket, endives and others. Ground elder makes as good a pie filling as any of the others mentioned - just a little bit bitter, gutsy and earthy.

The pastry recipe is from my friend Virve, who uses it to make a fabulously easy apple pie. It's the easiest pastry to work with and it tastes wonderful - it's easy, soft and pliable dough that procudes a flaky and wonderful pastry. The filling is inspired by my spanakopita recipe.

Hortapita or a Greek-style pie with wild greens
(Naadipirukas)
Serves 8




Pastry:
200 grams butter
200 grams sour cream
350 grams plain flour
a pinch of salt

Filling:
3 Tbsp oil
200 grams young ground-elder leaves
100 grams onion, finely chopped
200 grams cottage cheese or feta cheese
1 egg
1 Tbsp dried oregano
salt and coarsely ground black pepper

First, prepare the pastry. Melt the butter on a medium heat, take off the heat and cool a little. Mix in sour cream, flour and salt. Knead until the pastry comes together - it'll be very soft and pliable, like plastiline. Wrap into cling film and put into the fridge for up to 30 minutes (leave it for much longer, and you'll have hard time rolling it!)
Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Wash the wild greens, dry thoroughly. Heat a non-stick frying pan and 'cook' the leaves until they 'wilt'. Then quickly rinse them under cold running water to stop them from cooking further. Press until dry, and chop the cooked leaves coarsely.
Heat the non-stick frying pan again, this time with oil on it. Add the onion and cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes, until onion starts to soften. Take off the heat.
Now add the other ingredients, mix thoroughly.
Roll the relaxed dough to a large rectangle about 4-5 mm thick, cut into 2 more or less equally sized rectangles. Place the smaller one on a medium-sized oven tray, spread the filling on top, and cover with the larger dough sheet. Pinch the edges firmly together, pierce with a fork couple of times and brush with whisked egg.
Bake at 200C for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown. Cool a little and cut into squares.

Wild mushroom Hunt: Morcella esculenta / Yellow morels

All my regular readers know by now that I love mushrooms, especially wild ones. And although you can easily buy various fresh wild mushrooms at the market or preserved wild mushrooms in supermarkets, I prefer forageing for my own wild mushrooms - see here and here, for example. There's something immensely gratifying and refreshing about those long and quiet walks in the forests, and the excitement about what and where and how much we'll find is fun.

In late April and early May, I came across few ladies selling morels at the Tallinn Central Market. There's nothing special about these mushrooms as such (they were on the menu in pretty much every restaurant in London back in April), although they tend to be somewhat unknown among urban fungiphiles here in Estonia. K and his mom, for example, know loads of autumnal wild mushrooms, but had never come across morels yet. They hadn't even looked for any. When in Paluküla in early May, I asked my grandma and uncle and other villagers about morel mushrooms, and they knew nothing. Yet, my recently acquired new mushroom forager's bible, 400 Eesti seent (400 Estonian mushrooms) had a picture of black morels (Morchella conica) on the cover and claimed that these spring mushrooms should be pretty common in northern Estonia.

I was convinced that if I just looked hard enough, I'd find some.

And so I did. In mid-May, K's mum - as I said, hitherto unfamiliar with morels - asked around in her village about some unfamiliar spring mushrooms, and soon enough one of the neighbours told her that there are funny-looking mushrooms growing on the grassy open field just outside their farm. She picked up the mushrooms (on the bottom left, see photo above) and brought them to us for identification. With the help of the trusty mushroom bible we easily identified them as Morcella esculenta, examples of one of the yellow morels (pallohuhtasieni in Finnish, rundtoppmurkla in Swedish, сморчок настоящий alias smortšok nastojaššii in Russian). A fortnight later we were in Paluküla area again, and K. and I headed out to the field where the mushrooms were found earlier. Nothing.. We wondered around for about half an hour, carefully staring at the open fields, trying to spot a precious morel, but without luck. On the way back to the house we decided to have one last look at a yellow-green open field surrounded by tall birch trees. And voilà - suddenly I spotted a huge yellow morel (bottom right, photo above). And another, and another and another. Four in total. Then my mushroom luck was over, but K. found four more mushrooms (- you see, there is justice and gender equality in the world, after all:) Quite surprisingly, we returned from our first ever morel forageing trip with eight succulent yellow morels (top left, photo above). We must have got a good nose for mushrooms, the pair of us :)

The mushrooms? Well, if you've got something so delicious, you don't want to over-handle them. We cleaned and sliced them, fried in butter with some salt and pepper and a dash of cream, and ate them with some fried garlic scapes and salad leaves (top right, photo above). Mmmmmm.

I've got a feeling that it'll be a good year for wild mushrooms...

PS You can read more about identifying morel mushrooms over at MushroomExpert.com. Only pick mushrooms that you are certain about!!!