With a wild garlic patch thriving just outside my kitchen door we are using it quite a bit in our day to day cooking now that it is in season. In Germany, many friends of ours talked about wild garlic soup. We regrettably never tried wild garlic until returning to England. Last year I tried making wild garlic soup using onion and vegetable stock. I did like it but thought that some of the German recipes using cream seemed more interesting.

Today we had cream of wild garlic soup. It is loosly based on an Allgäu recipe but avoids the potato which I feel spoils the texture; that's just my prejudice and many people would differ from me.

Serves 4

Ingredients

100 g wild garlic (see comment below)
two medium onions
700 ml vegetable stock
300 ml single cream
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Method

1. Finely chop the onions and fry in the oil at a medium heat for 10 minutes
2. Wash the wild garlic leaves and chop them (set a few aside if you want to use them for garnish)
3. Add the wild garlic, then the vegetable stock to the onions
4. Leave on the heat for about 2 minutes
5. Blend the soup until the wild garlic pieces are fairly fine
6. Add the cream, mix well, leave for a few more minutes then serve
7. Optionally add small leaves as a garnish

Comments
a) In the UK I have never seen wild garlic for sale in a greengrocer so you need to gather it or grow your own. My rule of thumb is that I have a 20 cm diameter colander and if I fill it with leaves it works out at very close to 100 grams.
b) Don't overheat the soup after cream is added as it will curdle at some point
c) I don't like potato in soups but you might; the soup as described is fairly thin. The original recipe included a potato or you might try a parsnip which would give more body.

Just over a week ago, Mrs Oregano and I made a 3 day trip to Andalucia...it brought back past memories.

Thirty years ago I went InterRailing and the highlight of the trip was going on a round trip through Spain. I started in Madrid then went through Córdoba, Sevilla, Cádiz, Algeciras, Grenada and Barcelona. Having saved with difficulty for the InterRail pass there was little money left for accomodation and food. I took a lightweight tent but stayed in cheap Hotstales where possible.

I was nourished with tapas and sangria for a lot of the time. I particularly remember tiny spicy meat kebabs, fried squid and ham. Given that I was skint I was greatly insulted when I met a Wearsider in Barcelona who scoffed the spicy meat kebab I bought for him only for him to denounce it as "foreign muck". If he had the grace to say he did not want it I could have had a welcome second helping! The other highlight was the ubiquitous tortilla Española (potato and onion omelette) which were pre-prepared and heated on a griddle when needed. Oregano is not an egg fan but this was a notable exception.

I always wanted to take Mrs Oregano to see Andalucia. We managed a 2 week Easter break 3 years ago with our boys up in a villa 500 m above Nerja. We mainly self catered enjoying excellent seafood, chorizo and fresh lemons and avocados growing immediately outside our villa.

One rainy day we visited a big shopping centre at Vélez-Málaga and had lunch in a tapas bar. It was how I remembered with a range of little snacks (though no little kebabs). However we tried different grilled vegetables, chorizo, morcilla (black pudding), etc. An enjoyable family experience!

On our 3-day trip last weekend I hoped to do the same. However we hardly got a true tapas experience. It might be the fault of my less than rudimentary Spanish; I never learned it in school - it was not even offered in my school though I had to do 3 yrs of latin. 30 years ago I borrowed a younger sister's Spanish schoolbook and managed to build up a vocabulary of about 100+ words and simple grammar. Three years ago I did two terms of an evening class but I'm afraid that's it.

In case you are not familiar with tapas, the term is used to denote a small portion; the term originates from a slice of smoke ham offered in bars in the past over a wineglass. Raciones are simply bigger portions of a tapa - enough for a light meal or to share between a few people. 1/2 Raciones are offered as an intermediate portion.

On arriving in Tarifa on our first day we went to a tapas bar recommended in the Rough Guide around lunchtime. The waiter made it clear pretty quickly that we could only order a combination of 4 tapas. When we did not like the standard choice I was offered the chance to look at the bar and I made the mistake of choosing 3 things. These defaulted to 1/2 raciones and I lacked the Spanish to question this.

The end result was mixed:
Nr 1 was absolutely delectable. It was, presumably, rings of squid boiled until tender and then served cold with a garlic oil. The squid was absolutely soft and the oil was delicious. I need to try something similar at home!
Nr 2 was mainly positive for Dr Oregano but negative for Mrs Oregano. It was Albóndigas or beef/pork meatballs with a tomato sauce. I liked the meatballs and sauce but they were served on greasy thin chips. They reminded me of McDonalds' chips but fried about 20 degrees to low.
Nr 3 was what I thought would be my spicy kebabs with a sauce but what was more like a diced pork stew. It was not horrible, but not great either but worst served on greasy chips again.

Lesson is that Oregano needs to learn more Spanish!

BTW, I had been in Tarifa 30 years ago when the bus stopped there between Cádiz & Algeciras. It looked unremarkable from the bus stop. It is, in fact, a nice little Moorish town with the walls largely in tact surrounded by a modern suburb. However I estimate that the old town is only 500 metres square. There are fantastic views across to Morocco, a wonderful beach and you are truly at the opening of the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.

Two years ago I tried Mark Hix's Tagliolini with wild garlic and pancetta published in the Independent. We rougly followed this but used different pastas and bacon bits rather than pancetta. We also found that with welsh onions growing next to our wild garlic it was worth throwing them in too.

This year we have tried with chorizo rather than bacon. Either way the dish is simple and takes about 20 minutes to prepare.

Serves 4

Ingredients

500 g pasta (e.g. penne or fusilli)
200 g cooking chorizo
1 handful of wild garlic
1 handful of welsh onion (or small bunch spring onions)
1 tbsp olive oil

Method

1. Boil the pasta in salted water
2. Wash and dry wild garlic leaves and welsh onion tubes
2. Chop the wild garlic and welsh onions (roughly 1 cm wide)
3. Roughly chop the chorizo and fry gently in a wok or pot for 5 minutes
4. If using spring onions add them to the chorizo for about 3 minutes
5. Add the chopped wild garlic and welsh onions and mix with chorizo (they cook almost instantly)
6. Add the pasta and olive oil, mix thoroughly and serve

I have tried wild garlic soup in previous years, but a few weeks ago I thought it would be good to combine wild garlic into a pancake soup. I have never had pancake soup in this country but it is popular in Germany (Pfannkuchensuppe) and I think in Austria. It is simply a clear broth with shredded pancakes. Of course having made wild garlic pancakes I have found a website showing that other people in the Allgäu Alps have done it previously.

It is not difficult providing you have a source of wild garlic.

Serves 4

Ingredients

125 g plain flour
250 ml milk
2 eggs
a handfull of wild garlic leaves
pinch of salt
1 litre of vegetable stock
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Method

1. Whisk flour, milk and eggs into a batter
2. Shred the wild garlic leaves into fine strips about 2-3 cm long
3. Add most of the shredded leaves and pinch salt to the batter and whisk again
4. Heat an omelette pan with a little oil
5. Pour in enough batter to cover the bottom and fry
6. Flip when the batter has almost completely set and fry other side
7. Repeat until batter exhaused (should make 4 pancakes)
8. Meanwhile make one litre of vegetable stock (or beef stock if you prefer)
9. Roll the pancakes and shred them

10. Divide the shredded pancakes among soup bowls
11. Pour on vegetable stock,sprinkle remaining wild garlic over soup and serve.

Wild garlic is in season now - a good 3 weeks earlier than usual. We are at the Spring Equinox so I thought I would update the background of the blog to a seasonal wild garlic. Many people in this country are unaware of what to do with wild garlic. Even a chef I met a while ago was unaware of it; even though it grew 600 metres away from his workplace.

The Plant and Harvesting

So what is it like? The photo above shows a clumb of wild garlic I have dug up from my herb garden. The main plants are about 3 years old but you can also see seedlings from last year. It tends to grow very densely once established. The bulb is edible but is pretty small - like a cultivated garlic clove - and takes 3 years to develop. Thus wild garlic is mainly used for its leaves which means it can double as a herb and a provider of garlic taste. If you grow it in your garden, it is a waste to harvest the bulbs unless you need to thin them out.

Once established, wild garlic is hard to dislodge from your garden. A friend this morning told me that he has it in several parts of his garden and cannot get rid of it; he does not cook with it so it is a waste! Last year I observed something that is useful if you grow a small patch in your garden.

I noticed that if I cut through the base of the leaf (see above) rather than through the stem, the leaf grew again. The same leaf could be harvested twice. If the leaf was cut through the stem, it would not grow again.

Taste

If you gather or grow wild garlic you should taste it for yourself. In my view there is a chive-like foretaste with a garlicky aftertaste after about 5 seconds. Many people who disturb wild garlic in a wood, and get a strong garlicky smell, assume that the taste is very pungent. In my view the taste is on the mild side, especially after the leaves are cooked. It is certainly more subtle than cultivated garlic - especially from last season!

Lingo

I was made aware of cooking with wild garlic when I lived in Germany. The German word for wild garlic is Bärlauch meaning "bear's garlic". The botanical name allium ursinum and the French name l'ail des ours means the same thing. Apparently when the European brown bear (long extinct in the UK) came out of hibernation, the first thing it would eat, if available, was wild garlic!

Using Wild Garlic

Most recipes recommend either washing the leaves and drying them out or blanching them. Washing is common sense unless you want your local woodland or garden in your dish! If you preserve the wild garlic you need the washed leaves to be dry to avoid mould. Sometimes blanching is recommended.

Blanching

Blanching the leaves may be useful but also makes the leaves flacid. If you pick the leaves they go flacid over a few hours.

The leaf on the right was picked about 2 hours ago. The one on the left was blanched for just 5 seconds. While the leaves were not the same size (the one on the right was bigger) you see how quickly the blanched leaf goes flacid. In this respect the leaves behave in a similar way to spinach.

This also hints at the fact that very little cooking time is needed when using wild garlic. Like chives or welsh onions it cooks in seconds rather than minutes.

Storage

Wild garlic can be preserved in a few different ways:

- Freezing

The leaves can be frozen, but like spinach they defrosted leaves are limp and soggy.

- Drying

I have heard that this works but have no experience.

- In Vinegar

I have tried chopping leaves in a food processor then adding cider vinegar. The wild garlic flavours the vinegar but gives it a green colour.

- In Oil

I have preserved wild garlic in rapeseed oil. I used a common vegetable oil rather than olive oil simply because olive oil has a significant taste of its own while other oils are more neutral.

There was a recipe on a German website that worked really well for preserving wild garlic as a paste.

Ingredients

100 g wild garlic leaves
100 ml vegetable oil
5 g salt

Method

1. Wash and dry the wild garlic leaves
2. Chop up the wild garlic leaves and add the salt, leave for 15 min
3. Blend the wild garlic, salt and oil
4. Decant into a preserving jar and top up with oil so that no leaves are exposed to the air
5. Refridgerate

The wild garlic paste can be spooned out for stews or pasta dishes. My batch from last year is still in good condition.

Last night I arrived fairly late at the Marquis of Lorne not far from Bridport. It is a small inn with about 7 rooms and small bar and restaurant area. My wife and I had previously had a good meal there and this time I stayed in the inn as well as eating there.

I arrived last night later than expected - 21:30 - and expected the place to be closing down. I ordered a starter which was goat's cheese on toast with a chutney of tomato & red onion and a salad. The goats cheese was great and apparently locally sourced; can't remember the village name further to the North East. All the ingredients were fresh but I will never understand why salads are served in this country without a dressing. OK, I was stupid not to ask! The staff were really friendly and would doubtless have supplied one...but why is it not offered as standard?

If you like ale I can recommend Palmers ales from Bridport. I have never seen them outside of West Dorset but I liked them; there are at least 5 different ones. The inn offered the IPA (which I can recommend and the Copper ale. At lunchtime in Seatown I tried the 200 which was also good.

Tonight, I have been pretty hungry after a day in the open air...but definitely should not have ordered two courses. I was hoping for a repeat of the black pudding with apples and pears from November but the menu has been completely changed. However there were some good new items. The West Bay queen scallops with 'herbal risotto and pesto' were great; I did not miss the black pudding! I am not an expert on scallops but these were the biggest I have ever seen (3 cm in diameter at least) and tasted fabulous. They were cooked just right. The rice was with safron (or was it tumeric) and rocket leaves. I did not notice pesto but that does not matter as it complemented the scallops nicely.

I then had a filet steak with chips, stuffed tomatoes and fresh salad (this time I asked for the dressing, and got it no problem!). The filet steak was a very large size (larger than I would buy at home), very tender and cooked just right. For me, "medium" means cooked through but pink through and so many places in the UK go further than that. The tomatoes stuffed with mushroom were well-executed. Just a pity I could not finish it! Like many pubs, the chips were great and piping hot. Not some sort of extruded starch (like many fast food places) but obviously made from potatoes; yet not the sort of flacid, greasy chips that are so often served at a "chippy" because they fry the chips at a temperature suitable for fish.

If I recall correctly, the goats cheese salad was £6, scallops were about £7 and the fillet steak £16. Two courses was far too much but either would have made a great meal.

Watercress is in season for most of the year. A watercress farm near Arlesford said that they harvested about 11 months of the year. Many watercress soup recipes use potato to thicken the soup and I must admit I do not like the texture of using just potato...just a question of my taste! I have used parsnip and onion instead

Serves 4

Ingredients

Two bunches of watercress (I think of the tradional bunches sold in Hampshire) roughly 130 g
One large onion
One large parsnip
One vegetable stock cube
1 litre water
1 tblsp vegetable oil
(Optional) dollup of cream

Method

1. Chop the onion and slice the parsnip fairly thinly
2. Fry the onion and parsnip in oil for about 10 minutes
3. Add one litre of vegetable stock and simmer for 10 minutes
4. Chop the watercress roughly and add to the pot for 3 minutes
5. Blend the soup and serve

Most of my family likes chorizo - especially I do! In our town getting cold, hard, dried chorizo is not a problem. The soft, cooking, less dried chorizo is much more difficult to obtain and sadly the latter is what we use a lot. We are just evaluating a new source - Costco - having just got membership through my work.

I am not only in the bad books for going to bed late.. but also microwaved a chorizo without a cover. OK, that was stupid, so now there are the spatters of hot pork fat to clear away! Aaargh!

I have posted very little recently. I blame it on work pressure - no time to think, no motivation to do some fun things.

Today I had two really fun experiences. The first has nothing to do with "food fun" but was special for me as I enjoy nature generally and am very interested in birds of prey.

There is a small fruit and vegetable patch in my garden where I have strawberries, garlic, redcurrants and onions. I was standing next to a tumbling composter about one metre away from a laurel bush. Two birds shot past at head height between me and the laurel. The first was probably a blackbird giving a warning cry. I managed to see the second which was a sparrowhawk chasing the first bird. The wings, back and tail were distinctly slate coloured and the yellow talons were clearly visible below. They then shot between my garage and a boundary fence - pigeons fleeing in all directions. Hawks have amazing abilities to manoevre and accelerate in flight.

The second experience was that a friend from church brought round a whole roe deer. I have for many years enjoyed venison - especially when in Germany - and have often picked up diced venison for stews when visiting my Dad in the Highlands. My boys have tried venison sausages and burgers on holiday in Scotland and thorougly enjoyed them. However, I have not yet roasted venison.

Today we have two venison shanks, filet steaks, a haunch and two shoulders. It took quite a while to strip the meat off the shoulders and dice it; but we look forward to the stews! My wife then made venison stock from the shoulder bones. More fun to come!

Wild garlic - also known as ramsons or bear's garlic - is not that well known in British cooking. This is surprising as it tastes much like garlic cloves and is widespread in damp woodland. Basically anywhere that bluebells grow well you can often find wild garlic too. It needs some shade, some light and should not be too dry.

When I lived in Germany many people used wild garlic in season either buying the leaves at a greengrocer or growing a small patch in their garden. Whole websites are devoted to the subject.

I enjoy garlic and wild garlic has the health-giving benefits of cultivated garlic such as reducing blood pressure and cholesterol. We established a wild garlic patch in our herb garden with a few bulbs and seeds and it has spread through natural seeding. It is not in the shade of a tree but a fence casts a shadow for most of the day.

With a mild (or no) winter the 2007 crop is well on its way! Some leaves are almost ready to be cut.

If you gather wild garlic in woods, it is usually easy to recognise. If the leaves are disturbed there is a strong garlic smell. However, two poisonous plants can look similar. Wild arum - or 'lords and ladies' has very similar shoots when they first come above ground and grows in very similar conditions. Wild arum shoots tend to come about one or two weeks earlier than wild garlic but can overlap.

The two plants can be accurately distinguished once the leaves are unfolded. In the photo above there are two or three wild arum leaves surrounded by wild garlic. The wild arum leaves unfold horizontally and have deep veins (and often black spots); they also are concave near to the stem. Wild garlic never has black spots or this vein structure, has a convex shape and tends to grow more vertically until the weight of the leaf tips it over.

The wild garlic leaves look very similar to lily of the valley leaves (which are also poisonous). However wild garlic stems are green while lily of the valley has dark red/brown stems.

When I first sowed wild garlic seeds, I sowed them in mid winter and expected to see them grow in my pot that spring. When nothing happened, I threw the soil away only to find that they germinated the following year. The first season after germination you just get a small leaf which should not be harvested (the leaf needs to photosynthesise to build up the bulb). The second year leaf is marginal and in the third year you get full-sized leaves.