Kitchen diary: Wild garlic

One of the key ingredients to my cooking this week has been a very old friend, wild garlic.

Personally, I think this herb is very underused and probably more useful that the bulb variety (don't misunderstand me, wild garlic does have a bulb, but the ones I've picked are of no size and it is the stalks and leaves which seem to have the most character to me).  It still grows wild, although you are likely to find it on the Isle of Wight or Kent than anywhere else and of course, it is now grown commercially.

For some locals it is still known as Ramsons, which probably relates to the old key indicator for woods, especially in the south of England. 

If you do go out walking, you will probably smell it before you see it.  If late on in summer you will see a "skinny" version of the regular onion head, i.e. a globe of flowering head stands on stalk above the leaves, which to look at are quite shiny, wide and pointy.  The leaves have visible parallel veins and the underside is soft and the leaf as a whole slightly cushioned or squishy, as the four year old of a friend of mine used to describe it.

The reason I say more "useful" above is that the stalked of the leave, although short are very friendly when finely chopped to butter sauces, and rather gorgeous too in savoury version of welsh cakes.   The leaves themselves can be eaten raw and put into salad, but can (and should) be used instead of chives. 

 

A brilliant use is for a garlic and potato soup or for a very English pesto utilising hazel or cob nuts instead of pine nuts.  Rapeseed oil is such a good oil to use here, or if it is nutty you want, go for more hazelnut, always a winner especially with a mushroom sauce.