Cream and Wild Chervil sauce, pan-fried salmon and a salad. This was foraged from Brandon Hill Park and included Ramsons, Three Cornered Garlic and Wild Onions. Straightforward tasty food with a highly nutritious, crunchy, garlicy salad. I was fighting off a cold so I put LOTS of garlic in this salad. No sweaty supermarket vacuum packed nonsense here.
Laver.
Traditionally used by the Welsh to make laver bread, and often served with cockles or clams, in Japan Laver is transformed into Nori, the paper-like wrap for sushi. Laver is available all year round and best harvested when the tide is going out so it hasn’t yet picked up any grit.
This purple-brown seaweed is easy to recognise – it looks like an assortment of shredded plastic bags draped over the rocks! Granted, seaweed might not appear the most appetising of foods, but get involved and I promise you won’t be disappointed…
First, wash the laver thoroughly, then add to a pan of water and bring to the boil. Simmer for an hour or so, then strain.
In a small frying pan, cook some bacon medallions. Fry the mushrooms separately, then add the laver and mushrooms to the pan you cooked the medallions in.
Crack two eggs on top of the mixture and place under the grill for a few minutes until the eggs are cooked.
That’s it… Enjoy!
Winkles or Periwinkles.
These travel fast, and are not easy to catch! However, on a recent coastal foray I did manage to chase down one or two. As with seaweed, these gastropods are often overlooked, but they’re delicious, with or without accompaniment, and well worth the small amount of time it takes to remove them from their shells. You can find winkles all along the coasts of Britain, on rocks and mudflats where they feed on seaweed. Though very common, they breed during the summer, so best not disturb them at this time.
Winkles with crispy seaweed:
Rinse and soak the winkles in salted water half an hour before cooking.
Bring them to the boil in a pan and simmer for three or four minutes.Let them cool down a little. You will need something to remove them from their shells – I use a sewing needle – and discard the hard foot at the top end. People often dip them in malt vinegar, but I like them as they are, with just the saltwater they’re cooked in.
To make the crispy seaweed, first rinse it well to remove sand and other unwanted ingredients, and then dry it thoroughly. To cook, heat oil approximately 5cm deep in a heavy-based saucepan. Fry in batches and cook for five to six seconds – Gutweed pops and explodes when deep fried, so stand well clear!
Remove and place on kitchen paper to drain.
You can then add a pinch of sugar and maybe a little sesame oil or toasted sesame seeds if you like. Delicious.
This works well as a side dish, or as a condiment to sprinkle on fish or a stir-fry.
Seaweeds are packed full of goodness – they contain protein, carbohydrate, iron, iodine, and antioxidants. They taste great in stir fries, risottos and soups, or you can dry them and add to various dishes, so why not give some of these scrumptious seashore treats a try?
In another post I’ll tell you about a few more of my favourite seashore pickings. The highly versatile Sea Spinach will definitely be one of them.
A few good books I recommend are:
Wild Food by Roger Phillips
Eat the Beach by Fraser Christian
Edible Seashore by John Wright
http://www.wild-food.net/book/8/Seashore
My friend Jack’s noodle frittata with duck eggs, wild onion, three cornered garlic and scurvy grass. Delicious it was too. Jack has his own ducks. I think these were Jemima’s eggs but I could be wrong there. Can anyone tell me what the garnish is?
A real sign of spring. Young hawthorn leaves, still tender at this time of year, are full of goodness. I tend to just nibble a few leaves straight off the tree.
