cooking ground elder - take 2

OK - well, I thought I'd give cooking the ground elder a 2nd try, as there was promise in the first tasting of the steamed leaves.

Pick only the young, shiney leaves (not wet, thank you Harley-dog), ie those shoots where the leaves are still furled, or not quite fully opened. I picked the stems, as well as the leaves.
Rinse thoroughly in cold water - the garden is v dusty with tree pollen etc at the moment, and see comment about Harley-dog above.
Place in a steamer, and sprinkle with a small amount of salt (we don't use salt normally on steamed veg, but this seemed to need it)
Steam for 5 mins, mix through a knob of butter, and serve.

It was much better this time, a cross between meadow-sweet and asparagus, and went really well with our roast lamb, new potatoes and fresh mint!

 

Was wondering how you got on with the ground elder Sian, sounds quite tasty, I'll be having a go certainly plenty of the stuff to go at, we have a Fudgey dog too so I'll have to watch out for wet leaves,lol.

 

... and take 3!
last night we had another helping of ground elder. This time, I picked the young flowering shoots as well. Very tasty, and because they were that little bit bulkier in the stem, even more suggestive of asparagus.

Can't say that I'll be "allowing" the stuff to spread, but I certainly have a use for it now!

 

Sian, this thread has inspired me to make 'weedy garden soup' for tonight. I'm still in the early stages of clearing an overgrown garden. I managed to remove several small trees and large shrubs by this Spring...but now have a healthy cover of ground elder, nettles and wild garlic, which is now suddenly looking rather tasty!