For me, the best focaccia is always the simplest one, topped with flaky sea salt and extra virgin olive oil. However, this variation made with wild garlic is a delicious meal in itself. Don’t be tempted to add too many herbs to it – simplicity always pays off.
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I’ve been swept away on an aromatic love affair with wild garlic in the last few weeks. Starting from mid March this wild uncultivated food, also known as bear’s garlic or ramsons, explodes onto restaurants’ menus across the country, with chefs holding the location of their special ingredient close to their chests. The plant, however, is quite common in the UK and tends to grow prolifically in most woodlands, particularly in shady, cool and damp places, and often with bluebells. Care should be taken to identify wild garlic correctly as the leaves resemble those of lily of the valley, which is poisonous, but are a much deeper green in colour. What should be unmistakable though is the smell and so one of the surest ways of detecting the presence of wild garlic in any particular location is simply stopping and sniffing. You will smell it!
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“Small, misshapen, spotty and scabby, and full of pips, they do not inspire the cook. Nor are they remotely edible raw – they must be cooked. Yet when prepared properly they are a treasure” – John Wright describing crab apples in Hedgerow (Bloomsbury Publishing 2010).
I coulnd’t agree more. I would also include rosehips in the same category. The combination of those two foraged fruits produces the most wonderful flavour. I pair wild rosehips with crab apples to make jelly. The bad news is you probably won’t find fresh rosehips or crab apples in your local grocery, or even in a gourmet store. The good news though, is that these little gems seem to grow everywhere. Rosehips are one of the richest plant sources of vitamin C, and they are extremely high in antioxidants. The very high pectin content of crab apples means that the jelly always sets well. If you don’t have crab apples, you can replace them with cooking apples….