Wild Garlic & Crayfish soup

great recipe - found in a little side street Italian restaurant in Vienna.

Wild Garlic and crayfish soup.
wild garlic,
crayfish
fish stock
little bit of cream to thicken
wild garlic
basil oil
seasoning

would go well with a big cheesey crouton floating on top like you would with french onion soup

Tj.

Something to go with your Wiener Schnitzel?

Ok..so I take a week in Vienna, with no intentions of foraging...and what do i find?

well, pretty much what i left behind in Kent!

hedge garlic and wild strawberries growing merrily in Vienna's Schloss Schönbrunn.

Though as they even fine you for crossing the road unless the green man is flashing...I reckon their foraging laws are probably not worth arguing with, so left them be.

Tj@TheForagersNook


 

wild garlic pizza sauce....

If you happen upon a patch of ramsons....then here's what we did with them last night...

finely chopped them and some oily sundried tomatoes, and used it as a pizza sauce/pesto.

delicious.

tomorrow we're going to use them to wrap some chicken breasts in,

chicken breast + ramson leaves + parma ham, foil wrap it and roast for 30-40 mins, then unwrap for 10 to crispen the ham.  serve with new spuds, boiled and coated in wild garlic+butter....and a big salad.

Tj@TheNook

Ramsons - The King of Spring

If there is one Spring foraging sight that might be considered unmistakeable, it's the heady pungent aroma and bright white heads of Wild Garlic bobbing in the breeze in a shady nook.

When we started our venture last autumn, we had no idea where would be the best spot to find them local to us...until today!

10 mile meander through Fant Farm, up past St Margaret's church, up to and through Oaken Woods, and back down through Teston, and home along the river Medway.

Oaken woods didn't disappoint, its maze of walks lined with wild strawberries, violets, and promises of plenty of cob nuts and sweet chestnuts later in the season.

The "north pole road" heading down to Teston/Wateringbury has Wild Garlic (Ramson's) along it's northern edge.

But the best haul, if you want a pot-full of Ramson's is the Medway River Walk between Teston Bridge and Fant Farm.  look out for shady nooks and the white heads, and enjoy! - There's plenty to go round.

Tj@TheNook

A perfect spot for the May "Dawn Chorus".

a 13 mile hack from Holly Hill, across the Ranscombe nature reserve, and up to the Medway bridge, and back.

Just like the previous post, this stretch of the North Downs way is littered with

Hedge Garlic
Wild Violets
Wild/Alpine Strawberries
Nettles
a whole host of wild greens
beech nuts
Cobnuts



and it appears that where you find violets you will also find strawb's, they both love the chalky footpaths of the downs, so look out for the blue violets in march/april, then come back in may/june for a juicy treat - they are just starting to flower now.

But more than this, and for foraging nothing more that the wow-factor and the scent, were the stunning swathes of bluebells in flower






And as a final bonus, the wonderful bird life (for listening to!...not for foraging), the woods along this stretch will be the perfect place to revisit in May for the "Dawn Chorus", we saw and heard tits, finches, green woodpeckers, blackbirds, thrushes, and a few more we've yet to figure out what they are.
check out this site for more details - International Dawn Chorus Day http://www.idcd.info


Tj @ The Nook