Wild garlic musing

Starting these feasts has been a real joy, not only to get back behind the stoves and cook for you lovely people but re-discovering my joy for thinking about flavours and ingredients. Eleven years of mostly cooking family food had me in a bit of a rut, being able to gather and cook some different ingredients has been a lot of fun and it feels like an old muscle that hasn't been exercised in a long time is learning how to flex again. One of the challenges has been deciding what to put on the menu each time. With only 6 courses and a feast every 6 weeks, my head is starting to fill up with ideas again.

I have always been acutely attuned to the seasons. It just makes sense to me to cook with ingredients that are at their best at that moment. This here in lies my current predicament. Anyone who has been for a wooded walk cant help but notice the abundance of wild garlic. For any amateur forager this has got to be the absolute entry level and also happens to be one of the best wild green leaves you can find. With it's vibrant colour and pungent garlic aroma, it is just too good to waste using it. My predicament is that I long to use wild garlic at my next feast on April 19th but there is a strong risk that it will have passed it's best by then and due to timing I will have missed the opportunity. What to do.

This got me thinking that maybe I should try and preserve the amazing herb now for a future use. I have always been a fan of preserving, be that pork into bacon, milk into yogurt, water into beer etc. so why not apply this to the wild garlic. I have decided to try lactose fermenting (sauerkraut) the wild garlic. This is a fairly simple process of collecting and washing the leaves, mixing with 2% of the weight in salt. Giving it a good mix and squashing into a jar and leaving for a week or two for nature to do it's thing and turn the leaves into a tangy fermented kraut. My plan is to use the fermented wild garlic as the base of a rather pungent and spicy salsa verde to be served with a hunk of wood roasted beef picanha. In my mind the acidity from the fermented garlic will cut through the rich smoky beef perfectly.

For anyone who is coming on to the April feasts (thank you), I do hope you enjoy yourself and for helping me to rediscover a part of myself that has been under a stone for a few years. It really is a pleasure to cook for you and it brings me more joy than I can express.

Have a good Easter and if you find yourself on a walk, then why not pick some wild garlic and have some fun with it.

Henry