Wild Garlic

No such thing as a free lunch? Not the case if you like wild garlic.

Not that the thought of eating a plate of wild garlic leaves really does it for me. But with a few extra store-cupboard ingredients that bag of foraged leaves can easily be transformed into a delicious meal.

When Gav came home with a 300g bag of the stuff, my initial thoughts turned to risotto. But Gav fancied making some gnocchi and with a bag of potatoes lurking in the cupboard, I had to agree that was the way forward!

He used the recipe on this website, but doubled it up and stuck in a couple of eggs too. The recipe is pretty easy to follow - although shaping looked a bit tricky. But, by 'eck the end result tasted fabulous! 

We served a batch with grated cheese and a little chutney (see below) for a quick and easy tea whilst the rest went into the freezer (shape the dough then lay them on a metal sheet to freeze, then bag them). I think we'll serve future portions with a simple tomato sauce, or maybe just a little butter and a squeeze of lemon with a watercress salad...

As the gnocchi only used 240g of the wild garlic we had 60g left so I decided to make a South Indian style chutney too - as I had about 40g of fresh coriander which needed using up. I just blitzed the fresh leaves with two green birds eye chillies (seeds still in), a pinch of salt and a few good glugs of oil (I just used sunflower, but you can use olive if you prefer). I'd have added some lemon juice too, but we were out of lemons.

The end result was as delicious as I expected (after attending a Milestone cookery class I often make something similar but with coriander leaves and a couple of garlic cloves) and I will be using it in sandwiches, stirred into pasta and gnocchi!

Hopefully this year's wild garlic adventures have only just begun and we have lots more experimenting to do... check out what the good people of twitter like to do with their wild garlic...

Chris Hanson - salsa verde with lamb - I blanch it first just to take the edge off it then chop and mix with anchovy, parsley, olive oil etc.

Ros Arksey - works well in pasta, in bread, on pizza or with new potatoes.

Auriel Majumdar - omelettes (with duck eggs), risotto and pesto with walnuts. All yum. Also just been in London & had it in gnudi, fluffy & delicious. 

So come on then... how do you eat yours?!