The Currabinny Cooks: going wild with garlic
We do quite a bit of our walking, jogging and ambling in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, which, lucky for us, is a short walk away down the North Circular Road. Having this massive park at our doorstep has become of particular importance to us over the last few weeks. In the new landscape of social distancing, it can be particularly confining being in a large built up area like a city.
To be able to go outside once a day for some exercise is good for both our physical and mental health, as long as we are all being responsible and keeping safe distances from each other. The sheer size of the park means that being able to roam around freely in an outdoor space while not having to worry about getting too close to other people is easy to achieve. Another great aspect of being able to roam around the park is the abundance of wild garlic, which flourishes throughout the great expanse.
WIld Garlic, also known as ‘ramsons’, is a member of the onion/garlic family and grows prolifically in Ireland’s woodlands, parklands and along hedgerows, throughout Spring (March to May).
They are identifiable by their long green, spear-shaped leaves and white star shaped flowers. They also have quite a pungent smell, making them probably the easiest wild food to locate and harvest. They are incredibly easy to use and can be thrown into salads, mixed into butter, pesto, dressings, sauces, bread dough, mashed potato, gnocchi and soup.
Their flavour is less pungent then their aroma suggests, but you still must be careful with them so as not to totally overwhelm whatever you are using them with.
If you happen to come across wild garlic on your daily 2km walk, pick some of the leaves up, wrap them in some brown paper and take them home. They keep well enough, although putting the cut ends in a glass of water will save them from drying out too much. They will however last around a week in the fridge, which is fairly good for a foraged herb. When picking any foraged ingredient, it is best to find your wild bounty as far from the road as possible.
The recipes we have included here are super simple, deeply satisfying and apart from the bit of foraging you might have to do, the other ingredients are all standard enough.
Wild Garlic Mash
This is the pinnacle of spring time comfort food. Creamy mashed potatoes, buttery soft leeks and the gentle, addictive flavour of wild garlic.
4 or 5 medium potatoes such as red rooster
100g butter
2 leeks, cleaned well and green ends removed
250ml of full fat milk
175ml of cream
black pepper
Good handful of chopped wild garlic
Peel the potatoes and cook in a large pot of water for 30 to 40 minutes until cooked through. Remove and drain.
In a large saucepan, heat the butter and add the leeks, cooking for around 10 minutes until softened. Add the wild garlic. Pour in the milk and cream and bring to a simmer. Add the cooked potatoes and season with salt and pepper. Mash with a potato masher until smooth. Stir through an extra knob of butter for good measure and transfer into a serving dish.
Potato, Carrot and Wild Garlic Soup
This is essentially a humble soup made with simple ingredients, which you might have lying around the kitchen anyway.
This soup would be delicious just as it is, as all good homely soups are, but the addition of chopped wild garlic, elevates this into something special. This isn’t to say that wild garlic makes this soup pretentious, far from it, wild garlic is free to pick, grows abundantly and is quite often seen as a weed. What could be more unsophisticated than a weed, albeit a delicious weed.
Most wild garlic soups puree the wild garlic in with the rest of the ingredients but we like to stir it at the end and let it infuse like a herb.
450g of carrots, peeled, diced small
2 medium Irish potatoes, peeled, diced small
1 stick of celery, roughly chopped
1 medium onion, diced
50g butter
1 litre of good vegetable stock
Sea salt and black pepper
A handful of wild garlic leaves, finely chopped
Place a large saucepan on medium high heat, add the butter, letting it melt a little before adding the onion. Cook the onion down a little, stirring frequently until softened and golden. Add the diced carrot, celery and potato and stir until well coated in the butter. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
Fashion a paper lid with some parchment paper, or alternatively use some butter wrapper and press it down on the veg. Put the lid on the pot and turn the heat down to low. Leave to cook for around 10 - 15 minutes until the veg is nice and soft.
At this stage add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat to medium and simmer gently for around 15 minutes.
Check the seasoning and then using a stick blender, blitz until smooth. Add a good handful or two of chopped wild garlic and serve in bowls with some more wild garlic scattered on top.
Wild Garlic Pesto
It would almost be rude not to make a pesto with wild garlic, so suited is it to being blitzed together with lemon juice, oil, and walnuts into a delicious paste.
We like to add parsley and parmesan to give it another savoury element, although either can be omitted.
Season carefully with this one, as you only want to enhance the strong flavours and not overwhelm them.
75g wild garlic, stalks removed
30g parsley, stalks removed
Juice of ½ lemon
80ml rapeseed oil
30g parmesan
30g walnuts
Salt and pepper
In a food processor, blitz the ingredients for the pesto together, until a smooth paste is formed.
You may also, of course, use a pestle and mortar, for more rustic results.
Decant into a sterilised jar and pour a little rapeseed oil over the top to seal. Refrigerate, until needed.
Spirit of the Week
Matt D’Arcy & Co.10-Year-Old Port Finish Blend, 46% ABV;70cl — €109
Stockists: Celtic Whiskey Shop www.celticwhiskeyshop.ie
This is the first of two releases from Matt D’Arcy & Co, a revival of the old Newry-based whiskey brand.
An €8m distillery and visitor centre has been green-lit and is being built on the site of the original distillery using the original water source.
This is a 10-year-old grain whiskey blended with some 17-year-old single malt and finished in port casks.
Bright citrus and fig jam aromas with a background of allspice; fruity and soft on the palate, with lingering candied orange and a hit of clove and spice on the finish, a good debut.
The 17-year-old single malt (rum finish) is available in a limited run of just 384 bottles (€375).
