Golden gorse to lift the spirits

By Sarah Watson

gorsePhoto: Gorse in East Sussex by Ian Cunliffe, licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence, via Wikimedia Commons.

Gorse has been bringing striking golden-yellow brightness to the landscape since early January. Native common gorse (Ulex europaeus) is widespread on Sussex heaths, roadsides, railways and fields, flowering mainly from January to June. It’s a large, evergreen shrub covered in sharp, needle-like leaves with yellow coconut-perfumed flowers, the scent being more noticeable on sunny days.

Gorse_flower._(8476622380)Photo: Gorse flower by Ian Kirk, licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence,
via Wikimedia Commons.

The flowers of this pea family shrub are edible and impart a distinctive coconutty, floral-vanilla flavour to infusions. The petals can be used as a decorative salad garnish, scattered over cakes, or infused in boiling water to make a tea. Or try crystallising petals with beaten egg white and fine sugar and spreading them out to dry in a warm place (this intensifies the coconut flavour), then sprinkling over ice cream. Ideally a gorse ice cream, made by heating the cream or milk of your recipe with a handful of gorse flowers, then cooling and leaving it overnight in the fridge before straining and using it to make the ice cream.

Coconut_lime_cake-gorse2-adj-resizeAbove: my coconut and lime cake with gorse flower rum frosting, topped with fresh gorse petals.

Gorse flowers are also used in the new breed of artisan British gins such as The Botanist, in winemaking, and to flavour whisky and beer. Try John Wright’s River Cottage Handbook recipe for gorse flower white rum, or infuse a handful in vodka for just a couple of days, before straining and adding sugar to taste. I also make a sunny yellow syrup with lime and orange, which is just gently floral flavoured with a slight hint of coconut and can be used in cocktails or as a drizzle.

The flowers provide pollen for insects, especially on warmer winter days. Luckily picking too many is difficult as the bush is well-protected by sharp spines, so gathering them needs to be a slow, careful process – gloves are recommended, although I find it easier to get a feel for picking the blossoms without them, but caution is needed! Take care not to confuse gorse with the poisonous laburnum tree, which is also in the pea family and has bright yellow flowers, however unlike gorse, the flowers hang down in clusters and the leaves are not sharp and needle-like.

Discover  more about identifying and cooking with wild herbs and flowers on a Wild Feast forage, cook and eat course> book here.  Get more wild food tips and updates on courses on Facebook and sign up for my e-newsletter for wild food recipes direct to your inbox (option to unsubscribe at any time).

Flavourful food to forage this February – Three-cornered Leek

By Sarah Watson, forager

Three-cornered_leek_resize

The foraging season never really ends as there are always edible hardy plants to be found. From November to early spring, the leaves of three-cornered leek (Allium triquetrum) are tender and full-flavoured. It’s more subtle than brown onions, being a little leeky, with a smidgeon of spring onion and a cheeky hint of chive. When cooked it becomes milder and sweeter, so for maximum flavour eat young leaves raw, or add them near the end of cooking and wilt briefly.

Three-cornered leek is a Mediterranean plant introduced to the West Country in the 19th Century. It has naturalised widely in hedgerows, parks, field margins, verges and waste ground in southern England and the east coast of Ireland. It prefers a milder climate and is generally less widespread north of Oxford and in western Ireland, but can be found in scattered locations in the British Isles further north to St Andrews.

An invasive plant, albeit a pretty one, it’s an offence to plant it (or otherwise cause it to grow) in the wild in the UK. It spreads easily (mainly via ants dispersing the seeds) and can become dominant where it grows, crowding out other spring wild flowers like bluebells and primroses. So eat it with abandon, pick the flowers, pickle the seed pods!

Allium_triquetrum_close-up

Three-cornered leek flowers by Meneerke bloem (Own work) GFDL

Three-cornered leek is easy to identify, the leaves look a bit like grass or bluebells (although bluebells are poisonous), they’re strap-like with a ‘keel’ projecting from the centre of the underside, making them triangular in cross-section – hence ‘three-cornered’. The real giveaway is the onion smell when they’re bruised.

The flowerhead stem is also triangular in cross-section, and the bell-like flowers appear in March or April, looking for all the world like white bluebells, but with a narrow green stripe down the centre of each of the six petals. The flowerhead grows in an ‘umbel’ with a cluster of several fine flower stems arising from one point like the spokes of an umbrella. Be careful not to confuse three-cornered leek with summer snowflake (Leucojum aestivum) or snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis), both of which have white and green flowers in winter or spring, and are poisonous.

As an Allium, three-cornered leek contains the goodness of onions in the sulphur compounds that can help reduce cholesterol, protect the circulatory system and which have anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties; as well as containing saponins and flavonoids, potential antioxidants and anti-cancer agents.

I use the leaves like chives, spring onions or leeks – chopped in mash, blended with butter on new potatoes or steak, in a pesto, in soups and in tarts. While young and tender, the chopped leaves are great raw in salads or home-made coleslaw. The juicy edible flowers make an attractive onion-y garnish for savoury dishes and salads. The flower buds make a pretty pickle in hot, spiced vinegar, and the seed pods pickle well too, but catch them early before the seeds harden! Try this recipe.

For young, fresh leaves, try my tasty three-cornered leek guacamole – recipe below.

Always use good identification books to identify your foraged finds to 100% certainty before eating them – if in doubt, leave it out!

Discover more about identifying and cooking with wild edibles on a Wild Feast foraging & wild food course.  Get wild food and drink tips and updates on course dates on Facebook, or sign up for my e-newsletter for tips and recipes direct to your inbox.

Three-cornered Leek Guacamole

Three-cornered leek guacamole

I can’t get enough of fresh-flavoured, healthy guac, and three-cornered leek is a perfect ingredient for it as raw onion and garlic can overpower the delicate taste of avocado.

Ingredients:

2 ripe avocados.
1 ripe, flavoursome tomato.
Handful well-washed three-cornered leek leaves/bulbs (2-4 tbsp).
1 fresh green chilli.
1 tbsp sour cream (optional).
Juice of half a lime.
0.5 tsp white wine vinegar.
Few dashes of tabasco.
Pinch salt.
Ground black pepper.

Method:

Finely chop the three-cornered leek and the fresh chilli. Finely dice the tomato, removing the seeds. Mash the flesh of one avocado and dice the flesh of the other.

Tip these ingredients into the bowl reserving enough chopped three-cornered leek leaves to garnish. Add the lime juice, vinegar, tabasco and sour cream (if using), mix then season with salt and pepper.

If not serving straight away, cover with cling film pressed right onto the surface of the guac (to help prevent it oxidising and going brown), and refrigerate until needed.

Serve scattered with the remaining three-cornered leek leaves, with tortilla chips or nachos, or as an ingredient in tacos or burritos.

Warm up with Wild Healthy Comfort Food

By Sarah Watson

Sea beet (Beta vulgaris subspecies maritima) is the wild parent of cultivated chard and beetroot, it grows close to the sea and is common around the Sussex coast. It’s hardy and nutritious, being rich in vitamins A and C, antioxidants and minerals. The green, pointed leaves are similar to  spinach, but glossy, fleshier, and variable in shape.

Sussex sea beet gratin

Sea beet has a rich, earthy flavour with a hint of the sea, although the raw leaves taste quite soapy. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s delicious creamed sea beet gratin adds white sauce and a cheesy breadcrumb topping to the blanched succulent leaves – perfect with a pork or wild boar dish and some buttery mashed potato.

The herring season in Sussex begins around late October, by this time my elderberry-infused vinegar is ready for pickling herring (or mackerel). With the high omega-3 fatty acid content of the fish, and the flu-fighting properties and vitamin C content of elderberries, it’s a super-healthy dish!

Herring Pickled in Elderberry Vinegar
Herring pickled in elderberry vinegar

Take Nordic inspiration and pile pickled fish on top of toasted rye bread with finely sliced red onion, and for the comfort factor, add good dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche. To get my unique ‘Herring pickled in elderberry vinegar’ recipe, email me on sarah@wildfeast.co.uk and I’ll also send you my monthly e-newsletter.

As always, use good plant identification books to identify your finds to 100% certainty before eating them, and leave behind a good proportion of each plant to regenerate and provide food for wildlife. Discover more about identifying and cooking with wild herbs and flowers on a Wild Feast foraging & cookery course> book here.

Get more wild food tips and updates on courses on Facebook and sign up for my e-newsletter for wild food recipes direct to your inbox (option to unsubscribe at any time).

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