Wild Garlic

Can you eat wild Garlic, leaves or the flowers please as i now have some growing in the garden

 

All parts are edible Jiffy, you can eat the leaves or leave them to bulb up and dig them in the summer. They form a single longish bulb.

You can buy Cornish Yarg Cheese wrapped in the leaves now, as well as the traditional stinging nettle wrap

 

Thank you Zigs

How does it compare in strength with the other garlic

 

Wild garlic leaves and flowers are lovely. The flavour is more sort of mellow than 'proper' garlic. Use the leaves and flowers in mixed salads, soups, stir fry, or just in a sarny with a bit of salad cream.

I find the flavour compliments nettles very well, when making nettle soup

 

Thank you Clueless

For some reason i thought the wild garlic would be stronger

How do you take out the sting in nettle soup?

Miss Jiff fancies some nettle soup (when the nettles start growing) is it possible to have your recipe please

 

The stings melt as soon as they are cooked. Always eat the young nettles, not the old ones as they change chemically. As they used to say, the devil's wee'd on them after midsummer

Its good for wildlife to cut some down in summer to get the new growth, as catterpillars can't feed off the older plants.

 

Give them a good wash in cold water before you use them. You'll need to do this anyway to make sure there are no creatures or dog wee on them, but as a side effect, the cold water takes away the chemical that makes them sting, so once they've been washed, they wont sting any more. Also as Zigs said, as soon as you start cooking them the sting is gone too.

I don't really have a recipe for it, I just sort of make it up as I go along, but the basic plan is this:

* Wash and soak your nettles in cold water. You'll need quite a lot, chopped up they should half fill the pan.
* Chop them up, not too small, and put them in said pan.
* Add maybe one chopped onion.
* Optionally add some other chopped veg, or pre-soaked broth mix or whatever, or not.
* Cover it all with water to the required volume (I just fill the pan til the water is about an inch from the top).
* Boil it up, stirring occasionally. It will be ready within 20 minutes of coming to the boil. When it reaches boiling, keep it boiling steady but not on full. Just more than a simmer. I tend to add a bit of salt but some people don't like adding salt to stuff these days, I guess its not essential.

If you're adding wild garlic leave, you'll need about a handful, chopped up. Don't add them at the beginning. Add them for the last five minutes, otherwise you'll boil all the flavour out of them.

 

Like the pic's, everyone be smelling of garlic next or is that

clueless1 thank you for the recipe will try later

 

I wouldn't recommend eating the leaves raw, I find even one little touch on the tongue and the taste of garlic is in your mouth for hours.

 

You'm talking to folk who eat whole garlic blubs here though Madahhlia.

 

I make mine the same as Clueless but when cooked i like to whizz it and add a load of pepper and a big dollop of cream.....

 

And what about the Nettle Soup?

 

Ah, ok, I'll stand well back then.