I have always loved garlic and in particular the rampant forming clumps of wild garlic. I relish the fact that this plant may be consumed in its complete form; flowers, leaves and bulb.
I grow this in a large pot at the moment but have plans to turn over part of my garden to its invasive habits. My recipe is very straight forward and easy to make.
I used:
Makes 275g jar.
Prep: 15 mins
Cook: 2 mins
I couldn’t source the flower of the wild garlic plant which grows with ease in our climate in Northern Ireland, however, the leaves were clearly visible. My foraging led me to making a tangy garlic pesto combining the leaves with parmesan, garlic, lemon and pine nuts.
• 150g wild garlic leaves
• 50g parmesan
• 1 garlic clove finely chopped
• ½ lemon zested and a few squeezes of juice
• 50g pine nuts toasted
• 150ml rapeseed oil
Method
1 Rinse and roughly chop the wild garlic leaves.
2 Blitz the wild garlic leaves, parmesan, garlic, lemon zest and pine nuts to a rough paste in a food processor. Season, and with the motor running slowly, add almost all the oil. Taste, season and add a few squeezes of lemon juice.
3 Transfer the pesto to a clean jar and top with the remaining oil. If kept refrigerated it will stay fresh for 2 weeks.