Foraging Report 04/29/2011

Ramps leaves

April showers bring . . . May edibles. There has been lots of rain this past week, and not too many sunny days. The late winter and wet spring has produced some very hearty wild food this season so far. We noticed the many, many ramps (Allium tricoccum) patches that we visit have been growing especially thick this year, the stalks of the greens are thick and strong, and the leaves are wider than usual. The leaves are so substantial we have had to gather less leaves to chiffonade and freeze, and have considered stuffing the leaves like cabbage.

Nettle dumplings for soup

Nettles (Urtica dioica) are finally getting tall enough to pick in large quantities. We have several bricks of blanched and chopped nettles in the freezer to use throughout the year. The nettle beer is bubbling along happily, we hope to give it a try next week. We have nettles drying for tea in paper bags. I hope to get more nettles this weekend for soups, and I would like to try the bagel recipe with chopped nettles. We made some vibrant green soup dumplings, and are working on the recipe for sharing.

Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) is another abundant mid-spring green. The flowers on the flower stalks have started blooming, so we won't gather any more of them as they are getting tough. Now it is the triangular leaves near the tops of the flower stalks we can pick in vast quantities and boil as a side dish. I have remarked on how some foragers do not like the triangular leaves or the flower stalks due to bitterness, and we still disagree. Robert and Gillian tend to like bitter things like dandelion and burdock root, but I really do not. I do, however, love the garlic mustard stalks and leaves. I have a hard time even tasting the garlicky properties of the plant, and enjoy the green flavor very much. I suspect that climate, geography, and growing conditions as well as personal taste prevents us all from agreeing on the edibility rating of some plants. Soon after the flowers bloom, in early June, the seed pods will elongate and we'll pick those to eat while they are still green and tender. We really are trying to do our part in preventing the spread of this invasive plant by eating it's reproductive parts.

Dandelion flowers

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) greens and flowers seem to enjoy the abundant rain. Robert picked greens for boiling and flowers for making jelly this week. Picking the flowers for wine or jam is really time consuming, as the yellow petals have to be removed from the flower head without any green bits, which impart bitterness. This task leaves us with aching shoulders and blackened fingertips as we hunch over bowls for hours to end up with enough flower petals for a recipe.

Violets

Violets (Viola species) are carpeting lawns and shaded grassy areas. The early leaves are edible, but not our favorite. It is the pretty flowers that get our attention. They can be tossed into any salad, used to garnish desserts or yogurt, and Gillian likes them because they are purple. We picked a large quantity to make some electric purple violet jelly.

Japanese Knotweed, proper size
for gathering and cooking

Knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum) is just now getting too big and tough to gather. To use the plant in food, it has to be tender, but to make jelly I suppose a slightly larger and tougher plant is acceptable since the pulp is strained out of the juice. The jelly is surprisingly pink, not green as we expected. Robert loves it, I think it is OK, but I tend to not love most of the things we make with knotweed. The taste is hard to describe and compare to other things, it really is unique.

Now is a good time to take notice of fruit trees growing in wild places as they are blooming. We pass by accidental apple trees, landscaped plum trees at parks, and soon will notice the wild cherry trees in bloom.

Ramps Recipe - Ramps Pesto Potato Salad

This is a great green potato salad to make in the spring when our bodies are craving green things. I just tossed some cooked russets with ramps pesto and boiled eggs. This would also be tasty served with bacon crumbled on top.

Ramps Pesto Potato Salad          makes 6 servings

6 russet potatoes, diced
1/2 c. ramps pesto
olive oil
2 boiled eggs, diced
salt and pepper
6 strips bacon, cooked and diced

1. Boil the potatoes until tender and drain them Toss the hot potatoes with the pesto, adding a bit of olive oil to keep the salad moist. Add the diced boiled eggs, salt and pepper, and crumbled bacon, if using.

Ramps Recipe - 3 Onion and Beer Soup

This is similar to a French onion soup, although this version is vegetarian. The three onions we used were some accidentally pulled up ramps bulbs along with the greens, spring onion bulbs, and garden chives. The spring onions are the ones you see growing like crazy in the early spring all over people's lawns. The small bulbs are good to pull up very early before they start sending off smaller bulbs. This soup can be a bit bitter, but the addition of the Swiss cheese mellows it out nicely.

3 Onion-Beer Soup        makes 4 servings

2 c. mixed chopped onions, ramps bulbs and greens, spring onions, and chives
3 T olive oil
2 T flour
1 1/2 c. oatmeal stout beer
1 c. vegetable stock
salt and pepper to taste
croutons for serving
1/2 c. shredded Swiss cheese

1. Sautée the chopped onions in the olive oil until they are translucent and wilted, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the flour to the pot, and cook to create a light roux. Pour in the oatmeal stout and vegetable stock, whisking to prevent lumps. Bring the soup up to a boil, then reduce it to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Serve with croutons and shredded Swiss cheese on top of the soup.

Japanese Knotweed Recipe - Knotweed Wine

This recipe takes a bit more patience, as there is the year-long wait to taste the wine, and a bit more in the way of equipment. An early taste was slightly viscous and very vegetal, but the one year wait really improved the characteristics of the wine, and it was dry, a tad tart, overall a good effort.

Japanese knotweed is a wonderful wild edible, but a horrible invasive species. It came originally from Asia, and has spread to the US from the UK as an ornamental plant for it's pretty white flower sprays in summer and fall. It spreads mainly through rhizomes underground, but the seeds have "wings" to better ride the winds. Japanese knotweed looks like a red-speckled asparagus in it's early stages in the spring, but the leaves quickly unfurl and the smooth, hollow stems grow very tall. There are several very distinct identifiers, including the jointed stem which looks like bamboo, a membranous sheath at each of the stem joints, and leaves that are broad with an oddly straight base and a pointy tip. Japanese knotweed will grow just about anywhere, next to water, on the side of the road and railroad tracks, anywhere there is ample sunlight. It will also grow in just about any type of soil, so it easily excludes native vegetation. The thick layer of decomposing dry stems will out-mulch all competitors.



Japanese Knotweed Wine      Makes about 1 gallon

4 pounds Japanese knotweed, leaves removes, chopped
3 pounds sugar
1 tsp. yeast nutrient
juice of one orange
one envelope champagne yeast
1 gallon water

1. Place the chopped knotweed stalks in a straining bag, tie the top off into a knot, and place that in a sterilized 5 gallon bucket.

2. In a large pot, bring the water, sugar, yeast nutrient and orange juice to a boil and pour it all over the knotweed in the straining bag. Let it cool until about 70°F, and sprinkle the champagne yeast over the top. Stir the liquid and cover the bucket.

3.Keep this concoction in the bucket for a week, then strain it into a gallon demi-jon and top it with an airlock. Allow it to sit until the fermentation stops, then decant the wine into smaller bottles for aging.

Japanese Knotweed Recipe - Knotweed Dessert Bars



We put his recipe up last year, but it really is good and the knotweed is at the optimum height right now. This should be made ideally with the thickest, but shortest stalks you can find so they will be fleshy without any woodiness.

Japanese Knotweed Dessert Bars     makes a 11" x 7" pan

Crust:
1 c. flour
1 c. confectioners sugar
6 T cold butter

Filling:
2 large eggs, beaten
2/3 c. white sugar
1/4 c. flour
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. grated fresh nutmeg
3 c. chopped knotweed stalks, leaves removed

1. Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease the 11" x 7" baking pan.

2. In a food processor, pulse the crust ingredients together to resemble coarse crumbs. Press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan evenly. Bake the crust for 12 minutes.

3. For the filling, combine the eggs, sugar, flour, vanilla, and spices with a whisk. Stir in the chopped knotweed pieces and coat them evenly. Pour the filling mixture over the warm crust and spread it evenly.

4. Bake 30-40 minutes, until the egg mixture is set and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool. Cut into 1" squares and serve.

Unbaked Knotweed Bars

Ramps Recipe - Ramps Bagels

Ramps (Allium tricoccum) are an easy item for many foragers to start with. In the spring, areas of wet forest are blanketed with the green leaves that grow mostly in pairs. The leaves are lanceolate, 8-12 inches long, flat and wide. The leaves are smooth and have almost a rubbery feel, and lack veins. When bruised, they emit a distinct garlic smell. Many communities in Appalchia, Virginia, and Pennsylvania hold festivals in the spring to celebrate the ramps, featuring this foraged food in local specialties. The leaves are gathered and chopped up to add to dishes, imparting a oniony/garlicky flavor. Ramps can be found at farmer's markets and in fancy restaurants. We gather them to use immediately, and then clean and chop more leaves to freeze for use all year. We add the chopped leaves to soups and biscuits, and pretty much anything that you would add garlic or onion to, like scrambled eggs, potatoes, dips, and beans.

In autumn, it is the bulbs that are dug up and used like onion bulbs. It may be a bit harder to find the bulbs, since all that is visible is the dried flower stalk, usually still bearing black seeds in clusters of three in an umbel. Push aside the leaf litter and you will see the tips of the bulbs. Sometimes there are clusters of bulbs to dig up.

I had beeen making plain bagels since I came across a recipe on Serious Eats. It seemed like a logical and delicious step to make them flavored with freshly chopped ramps greens for the spring. We eat them with plain and vegetable cream cheese.

Ramps Bagels          makes about 12 bagels

19.25 oz. King Arthur bread flour
2 1/2 tsp yeast
2 T white sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 c. finely chopped ramps greens
12 oz. hot water (120°)
2 T demerara sugar
1 egg, beaten with 1 T water

1. In a food processor with the dough blade, pulse together the flour, yeast, white sugar, salt and chopped ramps greens.

2. Add the hot water slowly through the chute, and contnue processing until the dough is elastic, about 30 seconds.

3. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover and let it rise for 1 hour.

4. Divide the dough into 12 portions, about 2 oz. each.

5. Prepare a water bath by mixing 16 c. of water with the demerara sugar and bring it to a rolling boil in a large pot. Heat the oven to 500° F.

6. Shape the portioned dough into 7" snakes, pinch the ends together to form bagels. Alternatively, form balls with the portioned dough and poke a hole in the middle. Widen the hole with a few fingers. Allow the shaped bagels to rest on sheetpans sprinkled with cornmeal for 10 minutes.

7. Boil up to 3 bagels at a time in the water bath, cooking for 30 seconds on each side. Tranfer the boiled bagels back to the sheetpan and brush with the eggwash.

8. Bake the bagels for 15 mintues, flip them over on the sheetpan, reduce the heat to 350°F and cook them 10 minutes longer.

Japanese Knotweed Recipe - Cold Dessert Soup

This recipe is based on a Hungarian recipe for a chilled sour cherry soup. The soup is smooth, served cold as a dessert. The color is a lovely shade of spring green, and the soup would look wonderful garnished with some violets. This was a real taste surprise.

Chilled Japanese Knotweed Dessert Soup     makes about 6 servings

4 c. chopped Japanese Knotweed, leaves removed
4 c. water
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
10 T raw or demerara sugar
1/2 c. sour cream

1. Combine the Japanese knotweed, water and the cinnamon in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, and reduce to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes, covered. Remove the knotweed from the heat.

2. Whisk the sugar into the saucepan, mixing until the sugar is dissolved.

3. Purée the knotweed mixture in a blender. Pass the purée through a fine sieve or through several layers of cheesecloth to create a smooth texture and remove any large pieces.

4. Whisk the sour cream into the hot soup. Chill and serve.