wild recipe

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Wild Garlic Salt: The Benefits of Wild Garlic and a Flavorful Recipe


In the world of foraged delicacies, wild garlic stands out as a verdant gem with a rich history. Also known as ramps, ramsons, or Allium ursinum, this vibrant green herb not only adds a burst of flavor to your dishes but also brings a host of nutritional advantages. In this blog post, we’ll explore the benefits of wild garlic and provide you with a simple yet tantalizing recipe for wild garlic salt.

Benefits of Wild Garlic:

  • Rich in Nutrients: Wild garlic is a nutritional powerhouse, containing vitamins A and C, along with essential minerals like iron and manganese. These nutrients contribute to overall health and well-being.
  • Immune Boost: The high levels of allicin, the same compound found in garlic, give wild garlic its immune-boosting properties. Regular consumption may help fend off common illnesses and support a robust immune system.
  • Cardiovascular Health: Wild garlic has been linked to cardiovascular benefits, such as reducing blood pressure and improving cholesterol levels. Its allicin content plays a role in promoting heart health.
  • Anti-Inflammatory Properties: The anti-inflammatory properties of wild garlic make it a valuable addition to your diet, potentially assisting in managing inflammation-related conditions.
  • Rich in Antioxidants: Antioxidants in wild garlic help combat oxidative stress in the body, contributing to cellular health and potentially reducing the risk of chronic diseases.

Recipe: Wild Garlic Salt

Ingredients

  • 1 cup wild garlic leaves, washed and dried
  • 1 cup coarse sea salt


Instructions:

Harvesting Wild Garlic:

Ensure you are harvesting wild garlic from a clean, pesticide-free environment.
Carefully pluck the leaves, leaving the bulbs and roots intact for sustainable foraging.
Cleaning and Drying:

Wash the wild garlic leaves thoroughly under cold water.
Pat them dry with a clean kitchen towel or use a salad spinner to remove excess water.
Blending:

In a food processor, combine the wild garlic leaves and coarse sea salt.
Pulse the mixture until the wild garlic is finely chopped, and the salt has absorbed the vibrant green color.
Drying the Wild Garlic Salt:

Spread the wild garlic salt evenly on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Allow it to air-dry for 1-2 days or until the moisture has evaporated.
Storing:

Transfer the dried wild garlic salt to an airtight container.
Store in a cool, dark place to maintain its freshness and potency.
Usage Tip: Sprinkle this aromatic wild garlic salt on roasted vegetables, grilled meats, or even use it as a finishing touch for salads and soups. The distinct flavor of wild garlic will elevate your dishes to new heights.

See more recipes here

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6 Wild Teas to Forage all Year

There is always time for tea in our house. In fact, in Ireland it is said that one person can have up to 8 cups of tea a day. Tea has to be the ultimate comfort drink.

Red Clover Tea

Red clover is one of the most popular wild teas and luckily for us the plant is available for most of the year. The soft spiky purple headed flowers are hard to miss if you find yourself in any wild fielded area. This wild gem is used for lots of traditonal medicines. It is often used to treat respiratory issues and skin conditions. Next time you are out for a walk keep an eye out for some clovers. To prepare your red clover tea dry out the flower heads in a warm dry area (a windowsill will work), add three teaspoons of dried flowers to a cup of boiling water, let steep for 10 minutes and enjoy.

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Pine Needle Tea

The smell of pine is so enticing it is a wonder why this isn’t the most popular tea of all. Don’t be put off by the prickly pine needles, this tea is rich is Vitamin C and will give your immune system a welcome boost. There are many different species of Pine so be sure to do your research before picking. Spruce Pine is our favourite to use in teas. Be careful to watch out for Yew species as these are toxic. To prepare your tea simply boil a pot of water, add two handfuls of pine needles and drain. It smells like Christmas and you can have it all year round.

Nettle Tea

It is now common knowledge that nettles are a super food. The plant often disgarded and feared for its sting is one of the most valued plants by foragers. Nettles can help with urinary conditions, arthristis and blood sugar management. Always wear thick gloves when picking nettles. Add a spoon of honey and a slice of lemon for a little kick to one of the most popular wild teas.

Chamomile Tea

Also known as the natural calmer, wild chamomile is the ultimate cup of relaxation. The flowers contain the flavour. They look similar to daisies but are much bigger and usually bloom in the summer months. You will find them alongside karst coastal landscapes. Dry out the flower heads and add them to a cup of boiling water for a cup of calm at the weekend. Pregnant women should avoid this herb. This flower also works well with any salad dishes.

Raspberry Leaf Tea

This tea tastes most closely to our common tea leaves found in the supermarkets. However, as with all plants, raspberry leaves contain anti-oxidents and the leaves are packed with nutriants. When you boil it and remove the leaves it looks like your average cup of black tea. It contains a property called fragarine that helps to tone and tighten the pelvic area. Hence why many women use it around their menstual cycle.

Bull Thistle Tea

These plants have to be one of the hardest to forage. These prickly forest friends are easily identifiable with their spear heads and purple flowers. The best tea comes from cooking the roots. Always wear gloves when handling thistles.

We have created a downloadable wild teas poster for all of the wild tea fans out there.

Enjoy sipping your very own foraged teas this year.

Happy Foraging!

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Have a wild Come Dine With Me Night

Check out our new Foragers Menu and Recipe eBook. You can download the full eBook and Menu here. Cooking with friends and for friends is the perfect way to spend a weekend. While we are all asked to stay closer to home and only connect with a few close family members or friends we need to become creative and use our time together wisely.

As the weather starts to become warmer we can consider foraging and outdoor dining. With each season there is something unique to find and add to your favourite dishes. For now, you can try our newly designed Foragers Feast Menu and eRecipe collection.

What you need to host a dinner party for friends

  • Decide on a theme for your Come Dine With Me evening. We always go for something wild or nature related as it goes with some of our favourite ingredients. Italian night is also very popular and there are plenty of foraged foods that can be used as pizza toppings.
  • Ask your friends for their dietary requirements (you don’t want to serve nuts in every dish when there is a guest with an allergy)
    Prepare the dessert well in advance.
  • Read the recipes in full and decide where to find all of the ingredients (If foraging you will want to check the local park, forest or seaside).
  • Send the menu to your guests via email or phone. You can download the Foragers Feast menu here.
  • Make some homemade dips in advance.
  • The less you are cooking for, the more complicated the dishes can be but if you are hosting for 6 persons or more factor in the time it takes and stick to nice and easy if possible.
  • Make a spotify playlist to go with your dinner theme as have a background music. Atmosphere is everything when it comes to hosting dinner parties.
  • Don’t forget to join in the fun. You don’t want to spend all of your time in the kitchen.
  • Get help when you are serving up the food.
  • Remember to always offer the leftovers to guests.

We hope that our Foragers Feast Menu and recipes inspire your next wild Come Dine With Me and we look forward to hearing all about the results.

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Foraged Vitamin C Oat Balls

This super simple recipe is becoming a staple in the kitchen for the Autumn months. Learn how to pack a healthy dose of fresh Vitamin C into your breakfast balls with these tasty foraged Vitamin C packed Oat Balls aka Rosehip balls.

Just before we head into winter the rosehips are ripe for picking from the thorn filled bushes. There has to be some natural force behind this as our bodies are craving some Vitamins to sustain us for the long winter nights. We have come up with the most delicious way to use up your unused hips at this time of the year. Here is our delicious Oat ball recipe, made with freshly foraged and dried rosehips.

Ingredients

  • Oats (3 cups)
  • Brown Sugar (1/2 cup)
  • Honey (5 Tablespoons)
  • Condensed Milk (1/4 can)
  • Dried and Fresh Rosehips (2 handfuls)
  • Blackberries (1 handful)
  • Grated Apples x 2
  • Dark Chocolate (1 Bar – 200g)
  • Sea Salt (1 Tablespoon)

How to make Vitamin C Oat Ballsrosehip-oat-balls-vitamin-c

Step 1. Head out on a local foraging adventure to pick some fresh rosehips or buy dried rosehips from us if you don’t have time.

Step 2. Gather the other ingredients of oats, sugar, honey and condensed milk and gently combine them. Stir in a handful of raisins and two handfuls of loosely chopped dried rosehips. Now add two grated apples and a handful of blackberries.

Step 3. Roll this mixture into small balls and leave in a heated oven for 20 – 25 minutes.

Step 4. While your oat balls are in the oven heat some dark chocolate over a hot pan. Add a tablespoon of sea salt.

Step 5. Take your balls from the oven and coat them in the chocolate, leave in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Voila, you have your very own foraged Vitamin C oat balls. It is easy to play with this recipe, adding different seasonal products at different times of the year. We will give some Spring Oat balls a go in a couple of months.

 

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Wild Recipe: Caramelised Wild Onion and Nettle Dip

Are you hosting a dinner party or brunch anytime soon? Maybe you are looking to make something a little different for your Friday night treat? Our Caramelised wild onion and nettle dip is the perfect addition to any cheese board or platter of chips for any occassion. It is super simple, delicious and packed full of nutrients.

Ingredientscaramelised-wild-onion-and-nettle-dip-orchards-near-me

  • Wild Onion grass
  • 1 handful of dried nettles
  • Sour Cream
  • 1 large onion
  • 1 tablespoon of sugar
  • Salt and Pepper

How to Make your Wild nettle Dip

  1. Put a knob of butter in the pan and heat it on a low heat
  2. Slice the onion finely and add it to the pan
  3. Add your sugar next and leave to fry gently
  4. Combine your chopped up dried nettles and onion grass
  5. Add these to the pan and stir
  6. Remove from the heat, place in a bowl and stir in your sour cream
  7. Add some chopped parsley and a teaspoon of worchestshire sauce

Serve this up with some homemade crackers (try our curly dock crackers here) and cheese.

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Wild Food Recipe: Chocolate Orange Curly Dock Brownies

Are brownies one of the most popular treats today? I will admit that I am not much of a baker. Cooking is my calling and I love to work with food but I find the strict nature of baking, where you have to measure every ingredient carefully, too restricting. So when it comes to baking recipes I need easy to make ideas that will allow that extra room for flexibility if I decide to put in an extra spoonful of chocolate. These wild curly dock brownies turned out to be super simple and super tasty. chocolate-orange-brownie-recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 cup softened butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup of ground curly dock seeds
  • 1/2 cup of all purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup of cocoa powder
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 200g of Dark chocolate

Chocolate Orange Buttercream

  • 3 Tablespoons of butter
  • 1 Cup of icing sugar
  • 1 Teaspoon of Cocoa
  • 3 Tablespoons of freshly squeezed orange juice
  • Orange zest sliced thinly

How to Make Your Brownies

Preheat oven for 20 minutes.chocolate-orange-buttercream-topping

Line a baking tray with parchment paper or tinfoil. Beat the sugar and butter together until it is light and fluffy, add the eggs and mix. Leave to the side while you prepare the dry ingredients. Melt 1/2 the chocolate over a hot pan and leave it cool down. Fold into the wet mix.

Sift the dock seed, flour, baking powder and cocoa power together.

Beat the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

Spread mix in lined baking tray.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until centre comes out clean with a knife.

Add wild berries and icing sugar to decorate.

Voila! Now you are ready to treat your friends to some wild curly dock brownies. Learn more about Foraging for Curly Dock seeds here.

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Foraging for Curly Dock Seeds: Wild Flour, Crackers and Seed Mix

Getting to know Curly Dock aka Rumex Crispus is the perfect way to start a love affair with wild green leaves and wild seeds. It is a native plant in Europe and Asia but can today be found in agricultural land across the world. As one of the five most widely distributed plants in the world it is strange that we don’t find it is use in many areas.

Perhaps it is overshadowed by its edible cousins Buckwheat and Japanese knotweed, the Curly dock gets left on the shelf. As a medicinal plant it has been used as a laxative, to treat blood diseases and to treat jaundice.foraging-for-curly-dock-seeds-orchards-near-me

Is Curly Dock Edible?

Nearly every part of this commonly found plant is edible; the stem, the leaves, the seeds and the root are used in different ways.

Where to Find Curly Dock?

Curly dock isn’t fussy when it comes to its habitat and where it chooses to grow. You will find it on shingle beaches, roadsides and walking trails. It also grows in wet conditions, hence why we have so much of it here in Ireland. The leaves can be found all year round.

There are many myths that suggest rubbing dock leaves on a nettle sting will relieve the pain. Although there is no scientific evidence to prove this actually works, there is something soothing about using nature to cure any natural stings or bites.

In the summer and early Autumn the seeds start to appear on the dock leaf stems. They will turn brown and get lighter in weight.

How to prepare dock seeds?

The seeds should be harvested in late summer when they have turned brown. Simply use a knife or clippers to cut the seeds from the curly dock stems. Then gently pull the seeds from the stem while holding it over a large pan or bowl. You can either wash them gently or sift them through a sieve to remove any bugs. Finally use a pestle and mortar or a coffee grinder to blend the seeds into a fluffy flour mix.curly-dock-flour

The seeds are gluten free for anybody looking for a wheat free flour. Be sure to store the dock flour in an airtight container.

Dock Seed Recipes

Curly Dock Crackers Recipe

If you are looking for a simple snack recipe then curly dock crackers are easy to make, nutritious and full of flavour.

  • 1 cup of ground curly dock seeds
  • 1 cup of all purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon of sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon of Dried Thyme or Rosemary
  • Water

Wild Seed Mix

You can use this wild seed mix to add a spoonful of natural nutrition to your meals. We hand pick and dry out all of the seeks on a tray and combine an even amount of each one.

  • Curly Dock Seeds
  • Plaintain Seeds
  • Nettle Seeds

Now that you know all about Curly dock seeds you can keep an eye out for them the next time you are out for a walk. Let us know if you have any curly dock recipes to share too, we love swapping notes.

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Wild Onion Focaccia Recipe

This is a super easy and super delicious wild recipe that you bake over and over again. One batch a month is probably enough but in the summer months wild onion focaccia recipe goes well with any main meal.

Ingredients

For the Flavour

  • 1 large handful of Wild Onion chopped finely
  • 1 small bunch of wild garlic chopped finely
  • 3 cloves of garlic grated
  • Fresh herbs chopped finely (we used rosemary and thyme)
  • 1 Cup of Olive oil
  • Pepper and Sea salt

For the Dough

  • 1 packed of dry fast acting yeast
  • 2 1/2 cup of flour
  • A teaspoon of salt

Putting the Ingredients together

Add all of the flavour ingredients to a pan and pour over the olive oil. Leave this heat gently. Once the oil is infused with all of the ingredients leave it cool down.

Add the yeast to a cup of warm water. Mix in 1 cup of flour and leave for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes add the salt and the remainder of the flour. Now you are ready to add half of the oil mixture to your dough. Knead the dough 20 times and put into the fridge for 1 hour.

After an hour, remove the dough from the fridge, roll it out roughly (you don’t want to flatten it completely, just make a nice bulky rectangle). Now pierce holes all over the top of the dough with your thumb, pour over the rest of the infused oil and put into the oven for 25 minutes at 160 degrees.

To Serve

Whip together a few homemade dips, wild garlic hummus or just a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

A simple, wild focaccia recipe for family and friends. Enjoy!

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Recipe: Wild Spring Samosas

This is one of my favourite Spring dishes. Serve them as snacks to impress your dinner guests or rustle them up as a lunch time treat. Our wild samosas will put a spring in your step. We used three of our most loved wild Spring ingredients for these delicious samosas but feel free to get creative and add your own wild herb mix.wild-spring-samosa-recipe

Samosa Ingredients

  • Three cornered leak
  • Wild garlic
  • Dried Nettles
  • Potatoes
  • Cumin
  • Tumeric
  • Chilli Flakes
  • Salt and Pepper
  • Puff Pastry

Step 1. Boil your potatoes and mash them.

Step 2. Add a little olive oil to your pan. Next add wild-garlic-samosa-orchards-near-mechopped garlic leaves, three cornered leak, dandelion leaves, cumin, tumeric, chilli flakes, salt and pepper. Fry gently for 5 – 10 minutes.

Step 3. Add your curry mix to your mash potatoes. Add 1/2 cup of frozen peas and stir for another 5 minutes.

Step 4. Roll out your puff pastry. Turn over a bowl and cut out circles. Cut your circles in half and brush tips with flour and water. Make cone shapes with your pastry and add a spoonful of your samosa filling. Squeeze the sides together.

Step 5. Bake until golden crisp.

Step 6. Enjoy

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Wild Recipe: Delicious Dandelion Flatbread

This week we are foraging in the garden, using Spring weeds as the main ingredients in some of our daily dishes. Today we have a real recipe treat with easy garden weed flatbread.

Flatbread Ingredientseasy-garden-flatbread-recipe

  • 250g of plain flour
  • 1 Teaspoon of Baking powder
  • 1 Teaspoon of salt
  • 50g of butter melted
  • 185 ml of milk

Flatbread Toppings

  • Dandelion Leaves
  • Nettle Pesto
  • Pine Nuts
  • Mozzarella
  • Baby tomatoes
  • Balsamic Vinegar
  • Garlic
  • Salt and Pepper

dandelion-garden-flatbread-recipe

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Head out to the garden to collect your freshflatbread-toppings-orchards-near-mely grown dandelion leaves and a few dandelion heads to decorate. Be sure to wash them gently under luke warm water.
  2. Measure the flour into a large bowl and add the salt and baking powder.
  3. Melt butter in a saucepan over a low heat, once it is melted add the milk and remove from the hob.
  4. Make a whole in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients.
  5. Gently mix all of the ingredients until it forms a sticky dough. Now knead the dough for 5 minutes and leave to the side in a bowl wrapped with cling film for 30 minutes.
  6. Once ready, divide the dough into 4 or 5 pieces and roll it out.
  7. Heat oil on a pan and gently fry the dough for 1 or 2 minutes. You should see pockets of air rise as you cook.
  8. Now you are ready to add your toppings and place in the oven.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with toppings for this delicious flatbread.

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