Wild garlic and new potato salad

I'm away at college this week, so I won't be able to access the allotment until the weekend, when I'll be getting on with fencing, fencing and more fencing. Until then I have a few moments spare to talk a little about the wild garlic we recently transplanted to the allotment and share another very simple, but very tasty and healthy, recipe with you.

Wild garlic is a fantastic herb that grows wild in many locations in and around our towns and cities. The chances are you have some near you - you'll know it by the seriously pungent smell as you pass by. Unlike regular garlic, you just use the leaves, which taste similar to chives and which you use in much the same way. However, it isn't around forever and now is the time to pick it, so get out there pronto unless you want to wait till next year to enjoy it.

We're keen to garden using permaculture principles, one of which involves planting crops that will pretty much take care of themselves with little or no input from you. Wild garlic is perfect, as it grows like a weed and it's really tasty, so we dug up some we came across while on holiday a week or so ago and transplanted it to a nice shady spot in the allotment. Hopefully it'll take ok, so fingers crossed.

Only pick a few of the bigger leaves from each plant to allow the rest of the plant to keep growing and provide more tasty leaves for next time. Also, make sure you wash the leaves thoroughly before eating, as you never know who's been doing what to it before you picked it. When using it in your food, don't be shy with quantities, as it's a lot milder in taste than garlic cloves.

My favourite way to use it so far is in a simple potato salad.


Wild garlic and new potato salad

Ingredients:

• New potatoes
• A small handful of wild garlic leaves
• Extra virgin olive oil
• A pinch of sea salt

Method:

1. Boil some lovely new potatoes whole and in their skins (salt the water if you like)
2. In the mean time, wash the wild garlic leaves and chop them finely
3. Once they're cooked, give the potatoes a gentle bash with some kind of blunt implement (a potato masher is ideal, but don't over do it) to roughen them up and break them up a little. The oil and flavour will be better absorbed by the potatoes this way and the texture is lovely.
4. Mix through the olive oil, salt and chopped garlic leaves.
5. Mmmmmm!

A quick note on sea salt and extra virgin olive oil...

You should always use sea salt rather than table salt, as table salt contains chemical additives that stop the granules sticking together, whereas sea salt doesn't. If you find your salt sticking in the shaker, just put in a teaspoon of rice, which will prevent this from happening.

Lots of people don't know the difference between extra virgin and regular olive oil. It's really simple. They're both processed in the same way, but extra virgin olive oil uses olives that have been freshly harvested, whereas olives used in the 'normal' oil may have been sitting for some time before being pressed. I'd go for extra virgin every time.

Wild garlic salsa

Here's one we whipped up while on holiday - a nice side dish for David's tortilla (recipe coming up).

3 ripe tomatoes
20 leaves wild garlic
1 small red onion
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
olive oil, parsley, oregano, black pepper and salt to taste

Dice tomatoes and onion, cut wild garlic into thin strips (I use scissors). Mix these ingredients vigorously with generous amounts of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, chopped parsley, oregano, black pepper and salt. The resulting juicy dip should have a coarse soup consistency when the tomato juice is released. Refrigerate for up to 2 days, but be aware, the garlic taste gets stronger!

Wild garlic dip

Inspired by the time of year - and invariably returning from woodland walks with one hand full of broad-leaf wild garlic - here's a recipe that's quick and lovely:

10 leaves wild garlic
1 pack cream cheese or quark or yoghurt (200g)
1 squeeze lemon juice
salt to taste

Pick off individual large leaves of wild garlic - ideally away from dog walking routes - wash thoroughly and chop (I use scissors). Mix with other ingredients and refrigerate overnight to bring out the best of the flavours. Serve as a dip with crudites and breadsticks, or on toast topped with smoked salmon. Watered down, leftovers make a great salad dressing.

Our first co-op plants

With rabbit fencing begun and ongoing, we've concentrated on putting out the less tasty plants:
4 rows of pink fir potatoes (from the Castle Douglas health food shop organic sprouted pile for 50p), one row each for Sarah, David, Cate and Malcolm. We planted the sprouting potatoes in deep grooves, covered with horse manure and kept soil aside to fill in as the plants grow to encourage more root growth. David dug in 3 further rows of charlotte potatoes a few days later (the bolted variety off the reduced shelf at homebase)

We - David and Sarah - dug up a good square metre of broad-leaf wild garlic plants while on holiday in Dumfries&Galloway, and transported them back in three baking trays we had brought along. They travelled back precariously balanced on top of our bags in the back of our miniature car, in sweltering heat - well, not bad for Scotland anyway. The two hour trip back to Edinburgh with open windows was - well - aromatic.

Nenya spent a couple of afternoons tending to the bulbs and distributing them in the far-end woodland patch. I feel a recipe coming on!

On the way back, we stopped by David's dad's place, dug up a large potato patch in his back garden to get them started, borrowed a couple of tarpaulins and offered to thin out the rhubarb patch. Here's one of the six root pieces now in our "pumpkin patch":