Food Fun

Another way to keep wild garlic for when it is out of season is to dry it. This is a technique used by the JSW restaurant in Petersfield. Of course drying herbs is hardly a new idea but wild garlic dries just as nicely as herbs like oregano and thyme.

It is a simple technique which just requires a bit of time.

Ingredients

100 g fresh wild garlic leaves
1 tsp salt

Method

1. Cut and carefully wash the wild garlic leaves (obviously take what ever you want to preserve and scale accordingly).
2. Set oven to 50 Celsius
3. Dry leaves and spread out on trays with the leaves non-overlapping and place in oven
4. Once the leaves are brittle (~ 4 hours later) remove from oven. Make sure that all the leaves are dry and brittle
5. Grind using a spice grinder or food processor then add salt
6. Store in a jar

If you start with 100 g of wild garlic leaves you will end up with 20 g (or less) after drying.

A tart is something that is very easy to make especially with ready-made puff pastry. Around this time of year we have often made a tart using wild garlic, chorizo and cheese. The family is split on the choice of cheese with some preferring mozzarella and others feta cheese so we usually compromise by using both.

Serves 3-4 as main course (or 6-8 as starter)

Ingredients

One sheet of Just-Ro puff pastry
40 g  wild garlic leaves (about 20 leaves of 15 cm)
150 g cooking chorizo
one red onion
150 g cherry tomatoes
125 g mozzarella cheese
125 g feta cheese
salt & pepper

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 Celsius (fan) or to 200 C without fan
2. Finely chop the chorizo and gently fry in a frying pan
3. Wash wild garlic leaves then pat dry
4. When the chorizo fat is melting, thinly slice the red onion and add to the pan
5. Meanwhile either take the puff pastry sheet "as is" or roll out slightly
6. Make a rectangular score mark a good 1 cm or more from the edge of the pastry without cutting through the pastry
7. Prick the area inside the rectangle with a fork
8. Cut out a sheet of aluminium foil the same size as the scored rectangle and lightly press into the pastry
9. Put pastry in the oven until the edge of the tart has puffed up well
10. Remove the aluminium foil and the central area will not have risen and will look a little greasy
11. Return the pastry to the oven until the centre begins to rise (see right side of photo above) then remove.
12. Shred the wild garlic and spread over the centre of the pastry (the quantity is an estimate you simply need enough leaves to cover the area).
13. Spoon the chorizo and onion mix over the wild garlic leaves
14. Quarter the tomatoes and add to the tart
15. Grate the cheese and spread over the tart
16. Return the tart to the oven for about 10 minutes or when the cheese is well melted, then cut into portions using a pizza cutter