I decided to make a summary on wild garlic and let you know about a range of their names, how they are beneficial to our health and finally I will present few wild garlic – ramps recipes.
Common name
Many people wonder what the plant I use actually is. It has many names, in your area it can be called ramps or wild leek or wild garlic. According to Wikipedia: “Allium ursinum, known as wild garlic, ramsons, wild cowleek, cowlic, buckrams, broad-leaved garlic, wood garlic, bear leek, Eurasian wild garlic or bear’s garlic, is a bulbous perennial flowering plant in the amaryllis family Amaryllidaceae. It is native to Europe and Asia, where it grows in moist woodland. It is a wild relative of onion and garlic.” As far as I know from my readers, it grows also in United States and Canada. What about Australia? Please let me know! In some countries ramps are a threatened species, so before you start foraging you need to check that. I grow my wild garlic in a garden, so it’s completely legal to harvest:)
Bear’s garlic should be obtained from a trusted source, as it looks similar to
lily of the valley, which leaves are poisonous. Check twice before you eat something that is growing wild, it can be dangerous!
Ramps – how benefits your health
Wild garlic is a natural antibiotic – it kills bacteria and fungus and it’s really powerful. It helps to lower high blood pressure and cholesterol. Ramps has high level of vitamin C and B, it contains selenium, phytosterols and flavonoids. It cleanses the blood, neutralize free radicals and prevents cancer. As you can see, wild garlic benefit your health in many ways and helps to keep you in good shape.
Wild Garlic – Ramps recipes
Ramps taste like garlicky onions. Very fresh and pungent, however not as strong as regular garlic. It’s also more gentle to your stomach.
Wild garlic season is short, each year I try to find new ways to serve it. Try my recipes and have a fresh, seasonal, local healthy Spring dishes in your menu.
1. Bear’s Garlic Creamy Soup
Wild Garlic Soup is thick, fresh and has a beautiful color. A taste of Spring and nature and wildness too.
Recipe: Wild Garlic Soup.
2. Bear’s Garlic Cream Cheese
Easy recipe for cream cheese flavored with fresh wild garlic. Try this and have a beautiful open face Polish sandwich.
Recipe: Ramps Cream Cheese
3. Bear’s Garlic Pesto
Although origins of pesto is in Italian cuisine, this is more like “pesto” – a condiment that you can make with wild garlic, almonds or sunflower seeds. You can use it for meat marinating, bread spread, pasta, scrambled eggs and many more.
Recipe: Wild Garlic “Pesto”.
4. Farmer’s Cheese with Wild Garlic
For twarożek with ramps you need twaróg – Polish farmer’s cheese. Just forkblend twaróg with 30% cream, add chopped ramps . For 1 lb (400 g) of twaróg you need a cup of cream. Salt, pepper, I season it with black cumin (czarnuszka in Polish), as I love its flavor, you can use other favorite seasonings. Add thinly chopped ramps, combine. Ready! Serve with bread and butter. I like to toast bread before. Perfect for picnic!
5. Scrambled Eggs with Wild Garlic
Use up ramps season in 100%, make scrambled eggs with bear’s garlic. Take a handful of wild garlic, clean, chop it and saute in clarified butter, just a minute, so that it shrinks a bit. Beat the eggs in and saute till you get it as you like. A butter suits here so well, it’s worth to use it, but you can also use frying oil, if you like.
6. Wild Garlic Salt
You can use this salt to add flavor to many dishes, sandwiches, meats before baking and roasting, cream cheese, use it wherever you need a mild flavor of garlic.
Clean and chop a handful of ramps thinly. Place it in high power blender, add a cup of salt. Blend it well. Transfer salt with ramps to the bowl and add 1 more cup of salt, combine well. Spread the salt on the baking paper in a large baking dish. The thinner you spread it, the sooner it would become dry. Dry it in a oven in 50 C (120 F) for about 2 hours. Mix it few times during that time. You can also dry it in the warm place, but it could take even 2 days. It’s better to dry it faster and close in a jar, so that the aroma was not lost. Keep it in dark place, so that the color didn’t fade.
7. Ramps Bread Spread
This is another easy recipe for delicious wild garlic bread spread with sunflower seeds and cream cheese.
Clean and chop a handful of wild garlic. Blend it well with a half cup of roasted sunflower seeds. Add a drop of avocado oil, salt, finally mix cream cheese in. If the the texture is too tough, add some more oil. Actually right now I think that I would add a forkblended avodaco to it! It would make it smooth and even more delicious.
Check my wild garlic – ramps recipes and let me know which one you liked the best. Comment on the post if you have questions, other ideas on the recipe or just enjoyed reading. I would be happy to see your thoughts on my posts!
Thanks for liking and sharing my recipes to your friends – it helps to develop my blog!
