Saturday, April 19, 2014

Ramps Recipe Roundup


It's that time of year when Facebook is flooded with photos of ramps, requests for recipes, foodie blogs are trying to out-blog each other about their rampi-ness, and conservationists are preaching about sustainable harvesting. We are lucky to know of many, many places in Connecticut to harvest ramps, and we generally just snip the greens, anyway. Lots of folks ask why their bulbs are so small, and are erroneously told it's the age of the plant. The bulb size is small in spring because all the bulb's energy has gone into making the leaves and flower stalk. We don't bother to dig bulbs unless we have a very specific recipe that needs them, and even then, we wait until just before the ground freezes to get the largest bulb after the greens and flower stalk have long died back and the plant is storing it's energy for the winter.

Here's my conservationist preaching: Don't pick more than 10% of any large patch of ramps you come across, snip only one leaf from each plant, don't take more than you will use unless you plan on freezing the greens, and respect the land and don't pick in public parks or private property without permission.

Cattail Pollen and Ramps Biscuits
Ramps Langos
Stuffed Ramps Rolls
Ramps and Greens Stuffed Bread
Ramps Pesto
Ramps Pesto Potato Salad
Three Onion and Beer Soup
Ramps Bagels
Ramps Pickles
Ramps and Roasted Garlic Jam
Chinese Styles Ramps Pancakes
Morel and Ramps Biscuits 
Ramps Pasta


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love how you are putting your picture together mate, they look fab :)