Filed under: Cooking, spring seasonal food | Tags: edible wild plant, ground elder, pesto, pumpkin seed oil
Now the Spring is finally here and the first green things have started to come up! I wanted to get off to the forest and look for some new shoots of ground – elder ( Aegopodium podagraria) which is one of the first edible wild plants showing up in the spring. Now it is also the best time to collect it, since later in the summer it becomes slightly bitter.
I went off to the woods and found the new ground – elder leaves excactly where I expected them to be. What a hunter – gatherer’s joy I experienced at this! And while collecting them, I felt a lightness of heart, and strangely at peace the way I haven’t felt in a long time… maybe it was the connection to Mother Earth, who knows.
After returning home with my bounty, I decided to make pesto out of it. I thought that it would feel really nice to eat them uncooked.
Ground Elder Pesto with Pumpkin Seed Oil
1 dl almonds
1 dl pumpkin seed oil
1 tsp salt
3 handfuls of young leaves of ground – elder
1 clove of garlic
1/2 dl water
2 tsp dried basil
I made this pesto simply by mixing all the ingredients with a handheld mixer. The colour of it was scarily dark, but the taste very lovely, strong and flavourful. As I had intented, the strong taste of the pumpkinseed oil went really well together with the taste of ground elder.
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Goddess of Cake 
Excellent idea! Can’t wait to try this.
We made soup from it last year.
Comment by Heikki May 5, 2009 @ 12:08Don’t wait too long! The ground elder is growing fast, and you know how it’s not so special then… The season when the edible wild plants are at their best is so short that I never seem to have the time to try out everything that I’d like to. Next thing I want to try is lasagna with some new nettle. Hope I’ll catch them before they are too old!
Comment by goddessofcake May 5, 2009 @ 19:43[…] Kirskålen, som hotar dels från en grannruta och dels längs gången, än så länge en ruta bort från min. Tycker den är lite värre än kvickroten att ta bort då den är svårare att dra upp, fast nja, kaske inte ändå, rötterna verkar komma lättare, kanske för att kvickroten helst växer i hårdpackad lera medan kirskålen vill ha det luftigare. Kirskål kan – och bör – ätas. Att man kan stuva den som spenat är känt, men jag hittade ett annat otroligt lockande förslag här (dock på engelska). […]
Pingback by Grönt är skönt « Råkaja June 9, 2009 @ 12:19[…] a juice? ) and the sprouting wild vegetables will turn bitter in couple of weeks (did you make the pesto?). The spring rolls on, and meanwhile you might struggle with a pollen allergy, unfixed bike and […]
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