Foraged Flavor: Finding Fabulous Ingredients in Your Backyard or Farmer's Market, with 88 Recipes: A Cookbook Hardcover - 2012 - 1st Edition

Excerpt

Chickweed Crostini

Serves 4
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons olive oil
6 ounces (about ½ loaf) country bread, baguette, or other crusty bread, sliced 1 inch thick
1 small white onion, chopped
1 ounce (1 ¼ cups) tender chickweed greens or other wild green such as gallium or cress, plus more for serving
1 ½ ounces Gorgonzola or other tangy blue cheese
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 tablespoon chopped walnuts
 
1. In a large skillet, heat 2 teaspoons of the olive oil over medium-high heat; add the bread, pressing down on the slices. Toast each side until lightly browned.

2. In a medium skillet, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 2 minutes, or until softened. Add the chickweed and cook for a few minutes, or until tender and bright green.

3. Meanwhile, in a small pot, melt the Gorgonzola and cream over low heat.

4. Spoon equal portions of the chickweed on top of each bread slice and drizzle with the cheese sauce. Sprinkle with walnuts and a few raw sprigs of chickweed and serve.

Media reviews

“Much more than a field guide with recipes, this is a fascinating introduction to the nearly lost art of foraging for wild edibles. Tama and Eddy are truly passionate in their approach; their enthusiasm is inspiring.”
—David Tanis, author of Heart of the Artichoke and Other Kitchen Journeys
 
“I love any book that brings more plants into our world, and wild plants have the most special place in the kitchen. The combination of sound information and delectable recipes couldn’t be more enticing. A lovely book!”
—Deborah Madison, author of Local Flavors
 
“This is a charming and informative introduction to harvesting and cooking with wild plants in a sustainable and environmentally sensitive way. Eddy Leroux’s interesting and delicious recipes alone make the book a must-have.”
—Daniel Patterson, chef-owner of Coi
 
“Foraged Flavor is the perfect guide for the home cook to the bounty and beauty of what’s growing right there in your own backyard. Tama shares her enthusiasm for foraging and turns you on to harvesting from the ‘wild’ and Eddy's recipes turn the ‘wilderness’ into pure deliciousness.”
—Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer, authors of Canal House Cooking

“Foraged Flavor isn’t just a collection of gourmet recipes for weeds and other unappreciated plants. . . .  [It] matches the distinctive, variously nutty, tart, sour, hot, minty tastes of these wild herbs—for a weed, after all, is just a plant we don’t like—with their soul mates (ginger or mustard or pine nuts).”
—The New York Times
 
“Foraged Flavor is an unusual book in that it’s a joint effort between a forager (Wong) and a chef (Leroux), so in may ways, it provides the best of both worlds: information on the plants plus recipes that provide a sophisticated, culinary usage that go beyond teas and salads.”
—Epicurious
 
“The book could be called Foraged Urban Flavor as I count only a handful of plants in the book that I can’t find growing wild in my own garden or within a short distance. . . . The ingredients are easy to source (even in my inner-city neighborhood) and the recipes are simple enough that someone like me could follow them.”
—Treehugger.com
 
“In a few hours a truck would arrive at Ms. Wong’s house in rural Hunterdon County [New Jersey] to pick up bags of deadnettle, creeping jenny, chickweed, and other plants most people would step over or pull out. They will be delivered to Daniel, the three-Michelin-star Manhattan flagship of chef Daniel Boulud. Ms. Wong is the restaurant’s forager, relied on to help keep the menu diverse, unique, and flavorful. ‘With Tama, the level of trust is absolute,’ said Daniel’s chef de cuisine Eddy Leroux . . . The recipes [in Foraged Flavor] are largely simplified versions of dishes on the Daniel menu, such a pan-roasted wild turbot with pine needles and spring wild herb ravioli with Gorgonzola, which includes deadnettle, wild garlic mustard, chickweed, and dandelion.”
—The Wall Street Journal