Find Your Essential Nature Journal
Wild Garlic Pesto
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Siobhán Sloane, Find Your Essential Nature, Ireland
3 April 2020
Wild Garlic is an edible spring flowering plant that grows in woodlands and hedgerows of Ireland in March and April. I first came across this remarkable plant on a guided herb walk with Oonagh O’Dwyer of Wild Kitchen during the Burren Food Fayre a couple of years ago. I was amazed to see this bright green plant foraged from a hedgerow and blended with nuts and oil to create a tasty pesto.
This is my take on wild garlic pesto with a little help from a lovely book The Hedgerow Handbook by Adele Nozedar. There’s also a good recipe in Darina Allens’ Forgotten Skills of Cooking.
I gathered the wild garlic from a woodland near where I live and picked the dandelion leaves, mint and nettles from the back garden. The hazelnuts, oil and cheese are shop bought; the cheese is a mature white cheddar style. Measurements are by instinct.
Ingredients:
- Hazelnuts – crushed
- Olive Oil
- Hard Cheese – grated
- Wild Garlic Leaves
- Any other green herbs you have handy.
Method:
Blend the nuts, leaves and herbs, mix in the grated cheese and add the oil. Put the pesto into a glass jar. The wild garlic pesto would probably keep in the fridge for a week or so, but I’ve never had the chance to find out.
The pesto can be eaten on bread or crackers or added to soups or stews. I have tried it on homemade sourdough bread, as a pizza topping and swirled into celeriac soup.
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