As soon as spring comes upon us nature begins to deliver her abundance. But when thinking of wild foods most people tend to be reminded of Autumn and the wild fruit and mushroom harvest available then.

This is probably because many people are almost entirely ignorant of wild greens. The wild plants that can be harvested (often in your own back garden) and consumed.

Indeed, as soon as April turns into May edible wild plants spring into profusion. If you know what to look for then you can probably spot six edible species right in your own back garden. If you venture further afield, to a back lane, for example then with a little practice you will see thirty or more wild plants that are both edible and, more importantly, good to eat.

In fact there are well over a hundred common plants (many of them considered weeds) that you can collect and add to your own recipes. There are as many rarer plants again so that anyone with enough knowledge will be able to gather one wild plant or another all year round. Even in the depths of winter there are enough wild plants in abundance for you to be able to create a hedgerow salad.

Here I present two recipes designed around and incorporating wild spring greens.

Springtime Fritters

Ingredients:

180g flour

pinch of salt

1 egg

450ml flat beer

300g edible leaves and flowers (hawthorn flowers, broom flowers, gorse flowers, young beech leaves, hop shoots, bisort leaves, ground elder leaves, sow thistle, cleavers, ramsons, henbit deadnettle, red deadnettle, white deadnettle [anything that's to hand, basically])

Method:

Add the flour and salt to a large bowl, make a well in the middle and break the egg into this. Pour in a little of the beer and start to mix. Gradually pour more beer and incorporate more of the flour. Mix thoroughly so that there are no lumps and keep adding beer until our have a batter about the consistency of single cream. Cover the bowl with a cloth and allow to rest for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile trim your greens and flowers and rinse with plenty of cold water. Heat oil in a wok or deep pan and mix your flowers and greens into the batter. Drop spoonfuls of the batter mix into the hot oil and fry until golden, turning once.

Lift them onto a plate using a slotted spoon, drizzle with a little honey and serve warm.

A Spring Tart

Ingredients:

80g of spring buds (hawthorn flower and leaf buds, gorse flowers and beech leaves just out of bud)

150g spring greens (the young leaves of primroses, violets and wild strawberries)

12 primrose flowers

80g young spinach

100ml double cream

300ml single cream

60g naples bisket (or any dry sponge cake)

1 whole egg

2 egg yolks

enough pastry for a 22cm pie shell

60g sugar

salt, to taste

freshly-grated cinnamon

Method:

Place the primrose flowers in sugar to partly candy them.

Meanwhile, wash the buds and greens, drain them then chop very small. Add to a pan along with the single and double cream and bring to a boil. Simmer for 3 minutes, or until the greens wilt then take off the heat. Finely chop or grate the naples bisket and stir into the cream along with the sugar, salt and spices. Set aside to cool.

After you have made your pie crust (use either the short-crust for an expensive pie or the standard pie-crust recipes) place in a 22cm pie dish, add dried beans to keep the bottom flat and blind bake in an oven at 200°C for ten minutes.

Whisk the eggs into the cream mixture. Pour this mixture into the part-baked pie crust and dot the surface with butter. Bake the tart in an oven at 170°C for 75 minutes or until the surface turns a golden brown. Take out of the oven and allow to cool completely before decorating the top with the candied primrose flowers.

I hope that these recipes have given you a taste of how you can use the various wild foods and flowers on your doorstep to make tasty dishes from and that you will now want to find out more about how to include wild ingredients in your own cookery.

Dyfed Lloyd Evans runs the Celtnet Recipes site which specializes in Wild Food Recipes. If you would like to include more wild foods in your own cooking then why not check-out the Guide to Wild Foods that can help you identify the wild foods you can use in your own cookery.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dyfed_Lloyd_Evans

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