Delicious seasonal Wild Garlic recipes by Daniel Whiting @exploringwithflavours.
Embrace the enchanting but short lived season of wild garlic as spring sets in and starts to fill the air with its fleeting and intoxicating aromas. Take a step into your local woods between February and June to uncover the green treasure that you are in search of. Once you recognize its distinctive smell, you’ll find yourself immersed in its magical scent at every turn. This remarkable plant, with its culinary virtues and captivating flavours, it is nothing short of a chefs and amateur home cooks best friend.
Down below, you’ll find two flavoursome packed recipes that are very simple to and effective to make at home. feel free to play around with different ingredients and combinations as see where your imagination takes you.
Wild garlic herb oil:
250 ml good quality light olive oil.
100g Wild garlic.
Equipment:
Medium saucepan
Food Thermometer
Blender
Fine mesh sieve
Cheese cloth
Mixing bowl
Piping bag
Butchers twine
Method:
Start by giving your garlic a good wash to remove any dirty and debris, pat dry the garlic very gently and thoroughly and leave it to one side until you’re ready to use.
Next you’ll want to add your oil to a sauce pan and slowly bring it up to 90 Degrees celsius, when your oil has reached the desired temperature, be very careful and cautious and add your wild garlic to the pan. It may splatter slightly but this is normal. Make sure your garlic is fully submerged and bring the oil back up to 90c degrees Celsius.
When the oil has reached the temperature, remove the pan from the heat and slowly add everything into a food processor. You’ll now want to blitz everything together for around 5 minutes making sure everything is fully incorporated.
Line a fine mesh sieve with a cheese cloth and slowly pour your oil into the sieve, it’s important to let everything drain naturally, stirring occasionally to help everything pass.
When all of your oil has passed, and cooled down, discard of the left over wild garlic and transfer the oil to a food piping bag, next tie a knot at the top of the bag and leave it to hang for the next 24 hours. You’re oil will have some water which will have fallen to the bottom of the piping bag, to remove this, snip a small hole at the bottom and drain that water away. This will leave you with a beautiful emerald green wild garlic herb oil. You can store this at room temperature for up to 5 days and enjoy as a finishing garnish or in a delicious spring green salad.
Wild garlic and miso mayonnaise:
120g wild garlic
500g Good quality mayonnaise
5g White Miso paste
1tbs Yuzu juice
Salt to taste
Equipment:
Food processor
Food container
Method:
Start off by washing your wild garlic thoroughly to remove any dirt or debris, and pat dry gently making sure not to bruise any of your herbs. Add your wild garlic, miso, mayonnaise and yuzu juice to a blender, if you can’t source any yuzu, regular fresh lemon juice will work just as well. Blitz everything together on a medium setting until everything is incorporated and silky smooth. At this stage you can add any salt to taste, leaving you with the a perfect fresh Wild Garlic Mayonnaise, the perfect spring condiment.
Images supplied. Feature image courtesy of unsplash.com
