As well as the longer, (slightly!) warmer days, one of the delights of early spring is wild garlic. We’re fortunate to live in an area that has woodlands within walking/driving distance so each year it is readily available to us. We’ve been picking some here and there throughout the month but today we noticed the first flowers are appearing. Although you can absolutely eat wild garlic after it flowers (and I think some people even eat the flower stems like chives and add the flowers to salads), the leaves aren’t quite as delicious. I find that after flowering, they’re more ‘grassy’ and bitter. I thought I’d share with you a couple of the things that we did with wild garlic this month in case you fancy picking some too.
I should warn you before you continue: I’m 100% not a food blogger or in fact a blogger of any kind really! I just like to share little stories from our garden and home. As such, these recipes might not be exact and they’re certainly not ground-breaking; I’m just sharing what’s worked for us in our (slightly chaotic) kitchen.
Wild Garlic and Chive Butter
We made a garlic and chive butter and used some straight away and put some in the freezer for later. There are so many recipes out there for this so please do Google it until you find one that suits you but ours really couldn’t be more simple.
- Two massively heaped tablespoons of room temperature butter. We used a vegan alternative because our little girl has a suspected milk allergy.
- A tbsp of chopped wild garlic (I rinsed and snipped with scissors).
- A tsp of chopped chives – they’re currently growing in our garden so we just grabbed a little handful from there.
- A pinch of paprika, salt and pepper
- We mixed it all together and put half in some clingfilm and popped it in the freezer.
Crispy Potatoes with Wild Garlic and Cheese
I sliced a few waxy potatoes into thin (ish) slices. Sprayed them with oil and sprinkled a generous pinch of salt and pepper on top.
Put them in the oven for around 15 minutes at 200 (fan) or until they’re crispy.
Loosen them on the tray and spread them out a bit (or if you’re not as lazy as me, turn them all over) and put them in for another 5 minutes or so.
Chuck them in your serving dish and sprinkle some chopped wild garlic on top with grated cheese. Put them under the grill (or back in the oven) until the cheese is melted and eat straight away.
We had these as a side dish with burgers and salad and they were incredible!
Vegan (Wild) Garlic Bread
We used a shop bought baguette for this because although I love baking bread, realistically we just don’t have time for it during the week.
We decided on how big we wanted each slice of garlic bread to be and used a serrated knife to make the slits, cutting half way into the bread each time.
We then spread a dollop of the garlic and chive butter into each slit and grated some dairy free cheese (Cathedral City Plant Based Cheese) on top. It is the only cheese my little one will eat!
We then popped it in the oven for 10 mins or so on 180ish (fan) until the butter and cheese were melted and the baguette was crisp.
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I hope you enjoy foraging for (and cooking) wild garlic this spring. If you do make anything, please tag me. I’m always on the hunt for recipe inspiration. We still have a little handful left and I think it’s destined for some cheese scones tomorrow afternoon!
