Monthly Archives: April 2009

Dandy Tempura

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In case you haven’t noticed, dandelions have bigger brains than people. Seriously. And they get smarter each time you whack them. Mow a lawn of dandelions repeatedly and what happens? The dandelions learn to flower ever closer to the ground until those yellow Cheshire cat faces are grinning at you from beneath the grass. They know exactly how far down the cutting blade can reach, and that’s where they proliferate once again.

The other day, after harvesting a few batches of dandelion petals for Dandy Bread, I actually mowed my lawn, surprising myself even more than my neighbors. It’s been a week and the yard is already replenished with dandelions. No biggie. I picked a bunch of blooms for tempura.

Got a problem with tempura? I didn’t think so. Here at FOTL we may periodically throw a tizzy about health and nutrition and generally staving off rot, but you won’t hear a lot of griping about FAT. It’s the stuff for which our ancestors put their lives on the line. Need some fat to survive the winter? Roger that, let’s tool up and take down one of them #$*%&@ woolly mammoths again. Tucking into a bag of pork rinds doesn’t carry quite the same cachet.

Yeah but making you own tempura and making it well is almost as cool as hurling a prehistoric projectile at an oversized elephant having a bad hair day. And while I’ve tried a bunch of tempura recipes over the years with wildly varying results, this time I think I figured out the secret. Whatever you do, make it more watery than you deem appropriate. I used a recipe found here, then tweaked it.

3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup corn starch
1/2 cup ice-cold water, plus extra
1 tbsp rice wine
1 egg

In a bowl mix the flour and corn starch. In a second larger bowl, beat an egg until frothy, then add the ice water and beat some more. Stir in the rice wine. Now add the dry ingredients and mix quickly, not worrying about the lumps. Don’t over-mix! If the batter oozes off a spoon, it’s too thick. Add more ice water until the batter is watery. It’ll seem way too watery if you’re used to making, say, Beer-Batter Fish and Chips, but trust me.

Now proceed over to the stove with your bowl o’ batter and a plate of dandy flowerheads. Your vegetable oil should be good and hot by now. Flick in a drop of water to see if it pops and sizzles. Using your hands, dip a dandy in the seemingly too thin gruel. The batter will run off the dandy in sheets but the flower will still be thinly coated and looking rather sad and soggy. Gently drop the dandy into the oil, petals facing down, and PRESTO! The flower opens up as if the sun has just come out. (This miracle of kitchen chemistry won’t happen if the batter is too thick and heavy.) It’s really quite amazing to see the dandy regain its form, albeit with a beautifully thin veneer of crispy tempura as its new skin.

Dandy Tempura has an unusual mouth feel. If the batter is right, the outer crust should be crispy, yet being a flower, the overall texture is squishy. I mix the dandies in with other more traditional fare: sweet potato, bell pepper, onion, and zucchini, to name a few.

Now go pick a mess of ridiculously nutritious dandelions and start frying. That’ll teach those PhD weeds!

Chickweed Chimichurri

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SOUNDS LIKE AN Arizona ghost town. In fact, Chickweed Chimichuri is a zesty sauce.

Chimichurri hails from Argentina, where it was invented by an Irishman named Jimmy McCurry fighting for Argentinean independence in the 19th century. The sauce’s name is reputedly a bastardization of his name. Anyway, the traditional way to prepare it is with parsley, vinegar, garlic, oil, and hot pepper.

Here chickweed replaces the parsley and lemon juice replaces the vinegar.

Tuna with Chickweed Chimichurri

Chimichurri

1 packed cup chickweed, chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp shallot, fine dice
3 tbsp sweet red pepper, fine dice
1 tbsp hot pepper, de-seeded, fine dice
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp salt

Tuna and Sushi Rice

1 lb sushi-grade tuna, cut into small (1/2 inch) cubes
2 cups sushi rice
rice vinegar to taste

Makes 4 servings.

Mix chimichurri ingredients together in a bowl and refrigerate for an hour or so. Meanwhile make seasoned (i.e. add rice vinegar) sushi rice and cut up a bunch of sushi-grade tuna. Serve a dollop of the raw tuna over a bowl of rice; garnish with the chimichurri. The acidity of the chimichurri immediately begins to act on the tuna, changing the flavor in subtle ways as you eat.

Now, about the taste. A dish like this would seem to cry out for cilantro, but please resist. We all know what that tastes like. The greens in this case are far removed from parsley, cilantro, and other standard ceviche offerings. In a word, they’re wild. The bright green flavor, somewhat tempered by the other ingredients, gives this Tuna Poke a new twist. Enjoy it on its own merits or as a change of pace, preferably outside on a sunny day with a bottle of rosé wine.

 

Eat Your Yard

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Urban foragers need not worry about pesticides, herbicides, and other nasty contaminants if they simply harvest the bounty of their own yards—provided, of course, they themselves don’t apply such nasty contaminants. Today’s salad consists of bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta), cat’s-ear (Hypochaeris radicata), and dandelions (Taraxacum officinale), all picked in a matter of minutes just a few feet from the back door. Oh, and a few salmonberry blossoms to make it purty.

Sure, I could have gone to the hippie mart and picked up some expensive organic greens with French-sounding names. But why burn oil and greenbacks when I can get an equally delicious salad with far greater nutritional value for free right in my own backyard?

Cat’s-ear should be familiar to those of you who don’t insist on a grassy lawn (and probably those who do, much to their chagrin)—it’s the indestructible weed with a seemingly mile-deep taproot that looks a lot like a dandelion but shoots up a thin stalk with a less robust yellow flowerhead. The leaves are dandelion-like except for a profusion of tiny hairs. And it’s quite the succubus, sucking the surrounding lawn dry of water and nutrients. Cat’s-ear is just as nutritious as dandelions, less bitter, and has a longer season. You can harvest leaves in winter in our climate.

Bittercress is another common weed, with many different varieties at the species level. I’m pretty sure ours is Cardamine hirsuta, a European invader. The common name is a misnomer, however, that dates back to Linnaeus. Bittercress is hardly bitter—it’s crunchy and sweet, making it an excellent addition to salads.

Dandelions I’ve already covered in previous posts.

Now one thing: I don’t want to oversell this here salad. Wild greens, like meat, are gamier than what you’re probably used to. The flavor is delicious to some, a little peculiar to others. Try mixing in a few wild plants with a regular domestic green salad you’re first time out of the chute, then work up to an all-wild salad. This isn’t meant to be some sort of exercise in penance.

To my readers in the Puget Sound region, I highly recommend the 2nd edition of Arthur Lee Jacobson’s Wild Plants of Greater Seattle (although it’s most useful if you have some basic plant knowledge). For the rest of you, a little surfing around the web should help you locate similar guides with a regional emphasis. For the last several years I’ve been trying to improve my botanical skills. The best approach is to learn the families and genera; identifying plants to a species level can be quite difficult, and nearly impossible with field guides that cover the entire continent. You’re much better off studying the basics and then working with a local guide.

If you really want to go crazy in the PNW plant kingdom, pick up the bible: Hitchcock & Cronquist, a cool $60 ($48 at the ‘zon); this is the key to pretty much everything that grows around here, but you need to know your taxonomy.

Happy botanizing!

Fiddlehead Pasta with Lemon & Butter

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THEY LOOK GREAT on the plate and their taste, though distinctly wild, is still approachable—a cross between asparagus and artichoke, some say. Me: I say their taste is totally unique, although I get that butteriness as well as the high green note common in so many wild edible plants.

Fiddleheads are the new growth of ferns, named for their violin scroll shape. High-end restaurants charge handsomely for these greens, yet you can find them coast to coast without too much difficulty, sometimes even in urban parks.

The West Coast’s fiddlehead is the lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina). Elsewhere in North America, particularly in New England, the ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) is considered tops and makes up the bulk of the commercial trade. 

Look for fiddleheads in damp woodlands, swamps, and meadow margins. You want to get them while still young and tightly coiled; the unfurled fern fronds (say that 10 times, quick) are inedible. 

Fiddlehead Pasta with Lemon Butter Sauce

1 lb pasta
3 cups fiddleheads, cleaned
4 tbsp butter
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
1 cup parmesan cheese, grated
salt and pepper, to taste

1. Blanche the fiddleheads for a minute or two in pot of boiling water. Remove with slotted spoon and add pasta to same water.

2. Saute garlic in butter until not quite golden. Add lemon juice and cook another minute. Add fiddleheads and coat thoroughly. Toss with pasta, lemon zest, and cheese. Season at table. Serves 3-4.

Wilted Dandy Salad

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I’M USUALLY not a big fan of warm salads. But there’s one warm salad I’ve been making for years, thanks our friend Kathy.

Kathy’s Wilted Salad

6 cups dandelion greens (or spinach)
2 cups basil leaves
3-4 oz prosciutto, diced
1/2 cup pine nuts
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste

Mix the greens in a large salad bowl. Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat. Add pinenuts and garlic, stirring occasionally. When pinenuts start to brown, add prosciutto and cook one more minute. Pour contents of skillet over salad greens and toss with parm. Season if necessary.

Nettle and Porcini Lasagna

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STINGING NETTLES and porcini make this lasagna a little less run-of-the-mill. 

9-12 lasagna noodles
32 oz ricotta
4 cups boiled stinging nettles
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 medium onion, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 pound fresh porcini (or button) mushrooms, sliced
1-2 oz dried porcini mushrooms, rehydrated in a cup of warm water
1 16 oz mozzarella
1/8 tsp nutmeg
olive oil

1. Saute onion and garlic in a few tablespoons of olive oil until tender, then push to one side of pan and add sliced mushrooms. When mushrooms have started to brown slightly, add tomatoes and stir. Simmer for 30 minutes, adding water as necessary. After 30 minutes, stir in rehydrated mushrooms and their liquid. Simmer another 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile blanche nettles in boiling water for 2 minutes, remove, and wring out. Save water in pot. Chop nettles and mix with ricotta. Season with grated nutmeg.

3. Boil lasagna noodles in same pot (making use of those nettle nutrients) until al dente.

4. To make the lasagna: Smear a little sauce in a 9 X 13-inch oven-proof dish. Lay down 3-4 noodles and cover with half the nettle-ricotta mixture. Top with sauce and a third of the mozzarella. Repeat: noodles, nettle-ricotta, sauce, mozzarella. Cover with one more layer of noodles and the rest of the sauce and mozzarella.

5. Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Discard foil and bake another 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Braised Dandelion Greens

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Halibut with Braised GreensIN LIKE A LION and out like a lamb? Not likely. 

The upside is a long season for early spring greens. Dandelions poking through the pavers of my back terrace are just right for the plucking: big rosettes of leaves without buds (yet).

I braised a handful of the dandelion greens in white wine (1/4 cup) and chicken stock (1/2 cup) with some chopped garlic for 15 minutes or so.

Braising is an excellent and approachable way to start trying common edible weeds. If you like braised kale, you’ll feel the same way about dandelions. Use as a side dish or as part of a composed meal, such as this fillet of halibut over braised dandelions and cannelllini beans.