Wild Garlic
I have a confession, I am obsessed with foraging wild garlic, my favourite wild garlic recipe is pesto, but after reading the April’s Good Food magazine I thought let’s create my own recipe for wild garlic soup, using the wild garlic oil recipe from the magazine, a fantastic way to preserve the flavour of the wild garlic for use in the months ahead when it is out of season. I’m hoping to try a version of this recipe using dandelion leaves, as I’ve been obsessively reading different ways of using them but I’m not quite feeling brave enough yet… but watch this space!
It was a damp day yesterday, so we all put on our boots and headed to Gnoll Country Park, it’s a beautiful country park just a few minutes from our doorstep. Once there we had a lovely walk around the pond and the kids played in the ruins of the old house, then I revealed the real motive for the trip to the park, it was time to pick wild garlic, I needed a very large bag of wild garlic for this recipe and the oil so it was all hands picking to get the bag full. We had a lovely selection of flowers from the wild garlic, handpicked by Amelia which I used to garnish the soup.
Wild Garlic Soup
Ingredients
100g wild garlic
100g spinach
2 small onions
1 large leek
2 garlic cloves
200g potatoes
25g butter
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
Fresh thyme leaves
350ml chicken stock
100ml double cream
25g blue cheese
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Method
1. Wash the wild garlic thoroughly.
2. Slice the onions and leek, peel and chop the potatoes and finely chop the garlic cloves.
3. Melt the butter and oil in a saucepan, on a medium heat. Add the onions, leek, potatoes, garlic cloves and lots of thyme leaves. Cook gently for 5-10 minutes, until the potatoes start to become soft, add the chicken stock and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 5 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft.
4. Add the wild garlic and spinach and use a stick blender to blitz until very smooth, then strain through a sieve.
5. Add the soup back into the saucepan and heat gently, add cream and seasoning to taste, then add the blue cheese a little at a time, tasting and reserve a little to sprinkle over the top, to serve.
Top Tip
If you can't find wild garlic or it is out of season watercress makes a nice alternative
