Dandelion nuggets

If you are into foraging you will love these dandelion nuggets 💛

Pick and wash nice fat dandelions. Make a batter with eggs, breadcrumbs and a pinch of salt. Fry in oil on both sides until lightly golden, then bake in the hot oven for a few minutes until puffy and very golden. 

Serve, decorated with fresh dandelion petals. If you have children they will love these! Make plenty!

  Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Candied violets - violette candite, step by step

 

Pick the violets, rinse and drain. Place in a bowl and cover with boiling water and a drop of lemon juice. Cover and leave overnight. Drain and save the purple water into a pot. Add equal parts of sugar (I had 200ml water, 200g sugar). Boil until the syrup bubbles and add the violets. Patiently pick them up with a teaspoon and let the dry (it may take a few days). I used the leftover sugar to candy chestnuts, but any other fruit would do. Store your violets in a jar. 

  Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Frittata di primule / primrose frittata

Frittata di primule / primrose frittata, using both leaves and flowers. I pick just the youngest leaves and sauté them with a little olive oil and salt. Then I prepare the frittata mixture with free range eggs, some breadcrumbs (not too much), salt and pepper and plenty of rinsed primroses. I add the sautéed leaves and mix. Everything back into the hot frying pan to cook, slowly and covered, flipping over with the lid just towards the end of cooking. So yummy! The dandelions in the photos were used for nuggets (recipe coming up soon).

  Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

 

Lentil salad with onion weed

It is onion weed time again! Possibly one of the easiest plants to forage in New Zealand because it grows like a weed in many gardens and fields - so you can pick it and weed the garden at the same time. 

Bulbs, stems and flowers are edible (discard the flowers with the hard seed though, a bit tough). Eat raw or cooked. Here I used it in a brown lentil salad, just cooked lentils, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and chopped raw onion weed. Quick, easy and delicious!

 Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Crostata di marmellata di more e lamponi

I mede a lot of jam this Italian Summer, from fruit that I foraged and also picked from the garden.

Foraged: raspberries, blueberries, blackberries.

Picked: red currants, yellow plums, cornelian cherries.

I gave away some jam because I cannot take it back to New Zealand, but also made several crostata, Italian jam tarts, and this one has two jams: half raspberry and half blackberry. 

Ingredients:

100 g butter

100g sugar

300g flour

1 tsp of baking powder

1 small glass of Sassolino 

(this is a local aniseed liqueur, you can substitute with Sambuca, or with your favourite liqueur)

2 eggs

jam to fill

Mix the butter with the sugar, then add the other ingredients in order and mix. You will get a soft sticky dough. Keep about a fifth of the dough aside for the topping, and spread the rest in a tart pan based with baking paper. You cannot roll this dough with a rolling pin, it is too soft, you must spread it on the base and borders with your fingers. It may sound strange but this way you will get a crostata base that is not dry (as it often happens!).

Add the jam (or jams, in this case)

Roll the remaining dough into thin strips and place over the tart. Because this recipe has baking powder the strips will become larger during baking, so make them thin.

Bake at 180°C fan oven for about 45 minutes. Let it cool down completely before lifting out from the baking pan.

And here another one I made with yellow plum jum!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

 

Fennel salad with chicory flowers

 

I am not a huge fan of chicory, but I love chicory flowers. And I love fennel salad. I generally don't mix fennel with other vegetables, unless it is lentils (I love lentil salads with fennel). Usually I really like to keep a fennel salad nice and simple, dressed with a pinch of salt and a drop of olive oil. But it is so ... white! To make it more 'photogenic' today I added some chicory flowers I have foraged in my field in the mountain. They only have a tinge of chicory taste which goes well with the sweet and aniseed taste of fennel. Good combo for digestion too :-)

Pick the flowers and drop in a bowl of water to rinse, then on a paper towel to dry. Sprinkle the petals over your favourite salad (not necessarily a fennel one).

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Kawakawa liqueur - liquore al kawakawa

I have been planning to make a kawakawa liqueur for a while now, so when I went to Italy I bought back a bottle of 70% alcohol for this purpose (they didn't have the 95% in the shop, but 70% is more than I can find here in NZ anyway, where pure alcohol for making homemade liqueurs is not sold).

So this is my first attempt:

Pick, wash and pat dry 5 leaves of kawakawa

Place in a jar and add 200ml of alcohol (I used 70%)

Leave for 10 days in a dark place

After 10 days make a syrup with

100ml of water and 100g of sugar

Make sure that the syrup is clear before turning the heat off

Let the syrup cool down completely and then add to the alcohol and leaves

Leave for 10 more days

Filter and bottle

Leave for a couple of days to settle and taste!

Well, it is delicious, the colour is green and the aroma is strong (can't believe that just 5 leaves can give you so much flavour!!), not sure if it is too sweet or not for my taste (as sweet as limoncello really) but in one month and a few tastings I will decide how to make a second batch. I am pretty sure that it is good for digestion, and blocked nose! But let me 'experiment' a bit longer :-)

  Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

 

Colourful beet salad

 

These baby beets (and a couple of baby purple carrots) were boiled and then peeled (the skin comes off easily) and dressed with olive oil and salt, plus a sprinkle of fennel leaves. I added onion weed, borage and calendula petals to complete the salad. Very yummy, and pretty! 

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Kahikatea berries to eat!!

Is kahikatea berry season again! I already have a few posts about foraging these New Zealand tree berries here, if you want to find out more. Since I cannot climb the tall trees I have to pick the berries that fall on the ground, it takes time and they are tiny, but everyday I get just enough to put on the cereal in the morning (for Max and Peter, I just have them with yogurt). They need to be washed and then the black seed removed and discarded. I leave the remaining red berries to marinate with just a drop of manuka honey overnight, and in the morning they are ready for breakfast! 

Max's cereal! (TBW, we also have our own bananas!!)

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

 

Onion weed and Parmigiano fritters

 

Yeah onion weed time again!! Pick some fat one, as many as you can, wash well the juicy bulbs and chop finely, adding some green stalks and a few flowers. Mix three eggs with 2 tbsp of self raising flour and 3 of grated Parmigiano, add salt and pepper to taste and then the chopped onion weed. Fry in olive oil until golden and crispy. So yum!

 Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Covid-19 recipe 9: foraging for bamboo

I have bamboo growing in the driveway, which is beautiful but also invasive and we keep it under strict control, by cutting and.... eating. Every now and then my neighbour bring me big shoot (already about 1m high) which is great, but I much prefer the small and tender shoot so I check the driveway early in the morning for signs of shoots like the one picture above (bottom right). If you leave it to the afternoon it would shoot up in no time!!

I started cooking bamboo shoots when I was living in Japan, they were a different kind, much 'fatter' but these are good too, better than buying canned bamboo! Peel off the outer green layers, then cut into slices (I also like to cut the tips into two to see the layers), and discard the hard nodes. Rinse and cook for about 20 minutes in the water left over from rinsing rice (or add a little rice bran to your cooking water, I don't have rice bran so I keep the rice rinsing water), a pinch of salt and a chili (optional, but apparently it takes away the bitterness). 20 minutes suffice for small tender shoots, but if you have longer ones just make sure that you can pierce them with a knife or leave 5 minutes longer. If not using immediately store in lightly salted water.

Fresh bamboo is tasty by itself, or can be added to a variety of Asian dishes. Usually I have it with rice and other veggies in a Japanese meal, in a stir fry or a coconut 'curry'.

For this curry I fried a shallot with a little vegetable oil, then added one can of coconut cream, 500 ml of vegetable stock, 1 tsp each of Fresh As Kaffir lime powder, ginger powder, sweet basil powder, coriander powder and lemon grass powder, plus a bit of turmeric, and chili flakes, a couple of carrots, green beans, dried mushrooms (pre-soaked) Tofu and my cooked bamboo. At the end of cooking I also added fresh Vietnamese mint, basi, young broccoli leaves and, just before serving, marigold flowers and young Nasturtium leaves.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Covid-19 lockdown recipe 8: eating weeds

Those who know me also know that I like foraging and to eat a variety of wild food, weeds and flowers. I used to do this a lot as a child, and foraged food was a big part of my diet, but these day I do it mostly for fun, for taste, and for health.  This week I have been back to foraging for necessity, which is the best purpose to forage after all. Strictly this has not been 'foraging' though, but more like weeding. My salad leaves are growing at such a slow speed now that it is painful to watch (and yes, I go and watch them every day!!!) but what is growing in the salad bed at remarkable speed is chickweed! This little weed tends to cover the ground in no time, but it is also yummy, especially the young sprouts, and apparently has plenty of vitamin C, A and Bs. It can be cooked, but I prefer it raw, so here are a few ideas, in case you feel like weeding the garden too!

I made a smoothie with chickweed, feijoas and frozen banana (both the feijoas and banana also came from my garden) and some coconut water as a base. It tasted great and very healthy, similar to a smoothie with fruit and spinach. Ahhh but the satisfaction of having used a weed instead!!

Then, recovering a few salad leaves, and equal part (or more...) of chickweed, I had enough for a salad. I also added a few of the youngest leaves of nasturtium plus some flowers and buds, marigold petals and dianthus. This salad went straight into salad rolls, so it didn't need dressing, but if serving it as a side salad just add a little salt, lemon juice and olive oil.

And here another serving idea: bagel with nut cheese (or cream cheese) and weeds! Chickweed, wild cress and onion weed, all growing wildly in my backyard! So, if we really get into dire straits at least you can say that I taught you how to pick weeds and eat them! 🌱🌿

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Covid-19 lockdown recipe 4: lentil salads, i.e. making the most of 'poor' ingredients

Dried lentils are another 'staple' in my pantry, and I also noticed that while aisles of cans of beans were getting low at the supermarket, packets of dried lentils were still available. Good, because they are cheap and they go a long way, plus they are full of protein and very versatile: you can make soups, stews, curries, lasagne, side dishes or basically add them anywhere to 'increase' the size of your dishes and fill your belly. Because the weather is still nice I'll propose some salads, throwing in some fresh greens, edible flowers and a bit of NZ foraging too :-). All of these salads will serve heaps of people and last a few days in the fridge, in fact they taste better on the second day, giving the lentils time to absorb flavour from the dressing. So I usually make heaps and then before serving I take out what I need and I add the fresh greens and the flowers on the spot.

Lentils with flowers and leaves

500 g brown lentils

1 leaf bay

water and salt for boiling

extra virgin olive oil

white balsamic vinegar

salt to taste

mixed salad leaves

sliced radishes

tomatoes (cherry or cubed)

fresh herbs (like basil, parsley)

edible flowers

Soak the lentil overnight, then rinse well, add plenty of water, a bay leaf and a pinch of salt. Cook until 'al dente', or as soft as you like (but not mushy). Drain and briefly rinse under cold water. Place in a mixing bowl with the radishes and tomatoes, add extra virgin olive oil, white balsamic vinegar (to taste, but make sure that the ratio oil to vinegar is 2 to1), and some salt to taste. Line a serving plate or large shallow bowl with mixed salad leaves (leave a few small ones for the top), spoon the lentils on top, then sprinkle with the remaining salad leaves, herbs and petals (I used verbena, dianthus, and cornflowers).

Same recipe again but with broad beans and different flowers

 This time I added more tomatoes and also broad beans (just the frozen broad beans, to prepare them just cover them with boiling water and then remove the hard skin and they are ready to eat!) . Mix the lentils, broad beans and tomato with the dressing ingredients and place on a bed of mixes salad leaves. To decorate I used calendula, borage and dianthus petals.

With kahikatea berries

Here is another version with a bit of foraging from the New Zealand Bush! The kahikatea berries are ripening, it takes a long time to collect them but they are a welcome addition to a salad. You will need to remove the black blue seed and wash the berries delicately though. 

500 g brown lentils

1 leaf bay

water and salt for boiling

extra virgin olive oil

lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

frozen broad beans

kahikatea berries

calendula petals

Soak the lentil overnight, then rinse well, add plenty of water, a bay leaf and a pinch of salt. Cook until 'al dente', or as soft as you like (but not mushy). Drain and briefly rinse under cold water. Place in a mixing bowl, add extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste and the broad beans (just use the frozen broad beans, cover them with boiling water and then remove the hard skin so that they are ready to eat and bright green). Mix well and then top with the kahikatea berries and calendula petals.

Last one for the day

And here yet another salad (same basic recipe again, use either lemon juice or white balsamic vinegar) and more flowers: nasturtium, borage, verbena, poppy, marigold, dianthus, and cornflowers.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©