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Great ways to use wild garlic



Wild garlic is the most seasonal of seasonal produce usually available for just a few weeks around Easter time. Buckinghamshire is famously not famous for wild garlic but after a quick search and chat with a forager in the know, an area a couple of miles from Sarah’s house in Milton Keynes was found and a perfect opportunity for a lockdown outdoor activity. 

Checking the Countryfile guide first to ensure foraging was done responsibly she managed to bring back as much as would fit in the bike basket which left George the fun task of what to do with it. 


Preserving

As previously mentioned, wild garlic is not available all year round but there are plenty of ways to enjoy its delicate flavour and health benefits all year around. 

Oil

Perfect for salad dressings or in sauces, and will last for a few weeks or can be frozen. Blanch* your wild garlic leaves, wizz in a food processor and add equal parts good quality oil, then pass through a fine sieve. 

Drizzled over a white fish such as a seabass or seabream combined with roasted tomatoes and new potatoes (or even better, Jersey royals in June) 

The oil can also be used to make mayonnaise: check out this Great British Chef’s recipe to see how. 

https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/wild-garlic-mayonnaise-recipe

Powder 

Dehydrating as a preserving method is great because once the moisture is removed not only is the shelf life long but the flavour intensified, therefore not much is needed to pack a punch. 

You do not need a dehydrator for this all you need is an oven on 50 degrees. In the industry this is something we might do overnight and if you have an electric oven you can do this if you feel comfortable doing so. 

Once dehydrated blitz down into a fine powder in a food processor and store in an airtight container. 

Uses for the powder

  • Seasoning meat or vegetables 
  • Mix in with eggs 
  • Incorporate into bread flour to make a subtle garlic bread


Freeze 

Blanch and freeze to use in the future. Similar to spinach wild garlic wilts down so blanch* and either freeze into ice trays or small balls. 

*to blanch your leaves, place in boiling salted water for 10 seconds, remove and leave on the side a clean t-towel to dry 

Pickle 

Pickle the buds and use in salads or in a buttery sauce for a light white fish.

Standard pickle recipe

1 part water
1 part vinegar
1 part sugar


Semi preserved

Pesto 

Wild garlic pesto makes a great pesto, perfect for pasta and salads and will last about two weeks in the fridge. There are plenty of recipes to follow to make the pesto, with standard pine nuts, parmesan (or vegan alternative) and lemon juice. 

For a lovely, quick weekday spring dish, add your pesto to cooked gnocchi with cherry tomatoes, artichoke and roasted chicken breast. If you have a bit more time on your hands and feeling braver, try making the gnocchi yourself, see the video by Gennaro on Jamie Oliver’s YouTube channel to see how:- 

Butter 

Butter will last for weeks in the fridge (you could also freeze) and is really very versatile. 

Finely chop your garlic leaves and add to slightly softened butter with a touch of salt. 

The “chef” way to then store it would be as a log**, this is so you can create small portions at a time easily with a sharp knife, but you could store in a tub or a jar. 

This butter then can be used on steaks, in garlic bread or Chef George’s favourite…the mighty chicken Kiev, 

** video on how to make a compound butter 


Eat fresh 

Add the flowers to your scrambled eggs

Pimp your pizza – add leaves to a shop bought or homemade pizza before you cook or add flowers to the top after you have cooked. 

Substitute any of your favourite spinach recipes with wild garlic such as; 
Tortilla
Sweet potato fritters
Saag aloo
Pasta sauce
Filled pasta
Risotto
Filo pie filling

BBQ Marinade – blend (Nutribullet or similar) chopped wild garlic, oil, lemon and green chilli to make a marinade perfect for chicken or even to be served on steak after cooked. 

Foraging should  be done responsibly and with permission of the land owner. Read Countryfile’s guide below to make sure you are following the rules and if in doubt always follow the Countryside Code! 

https://www.countryfile.com/how-to/food-recipes/wild-garlic-guide-where-to-find-how-to-cook-it-and-recipe-ideas/

Have you ever used Wild Garlic in a recipe or have you tried it in a dish in a restaurant? Let us know if you have and what you thought via Inspiresdining on Facebook or @inspires_dining on instagram. 

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Cooking responsibly and sustainably

The “Attenborough effect” is hitting all the headlines currently and you cannot go on social media much these days without seeing someone highlighting a supermarket’s use of unnecessary plastic. The food manufacturing sector is getting a bit of a bad rep at the moment but really they are just taking the flack for a whole sector that could do better.

Similarly to the manufacturing and food producers, the pressure from consumers to have the perfect product, as well as scrutiny from local health authorities, has led to the Hospitality and Food Sector to be responsible for 2.87 million tonnes of waste each year. Of this waste, 1.6 millions tonnes is packaging, of which 46% is recycled*. A lot of this can be down to local councils and systems outside the control of outlets, but with only 12% of food waste being recycled there certainly seems to be a problem, especially when you consider that 45% of food waste is from preparation.

A bit of background…

Having worked in the hospitality sector since the early 00’s everything we were taught was about “the customer experience”, which is fair. So when it came down to food, working for an international hotel chain in the restaurant, it was all about ensuring the customer at 6am and the customer at 11am had the exact same offering. The waste was UNREAL. Just think that this was going on throughout every hotel of this brand (and probably others) all over the world, EVERY DAY.

Since then, moving away from hotels and into restaurants, there is a lot less food waste, but still the same focus on customer experience, which creates a different kind of waste. Chain restaurants, with their obsession for brand standards and economies of scale, lead to products being pre-prepared and provided as part of a single, massive contract with a national producer, before being distributed up and down the country rather than working with local, less travelled products.

All of this is on top of strict quality control measures enforced by local environmental health officers, who despite having stringent guidelines for us all to follow in order to serve safe food, take no responsibility in ensuring food waste is controlled. A time for a change on this perhaps? Wouldn’t it be great to see a similar star system to acknowledge responsible food production, as well as being safe for consumption?

What we are doing…

At Inspires Dining we are passionate about reducing our impact on the planet and operating responsibly.

With this in mind we have worked with Richard Lewis from WasteLESS Consulting to review our processes and take a close look at what we are doing well and where we can do better.

The highlights from the review where we are already making positive steps were:

  • Buying locally from independent suppliers, enabling us to purchase packet free
  • Creating food menus that produce little waste or waste that can be used in another way
  • Where food waste is unavoidable, we compost as much as we can
  • Using environmentally friendly cleaning chemicals
  • Utilising re-usable cloths and linen including napkins made from scrap material

See the full review on our sustainability page 

* data from WRAP (Waste Resource Action Programme) http://www.wrap.org.uk/food-drink/business-food-waste/hospitality-food-service