First Home Harvests 2016

One swallow does not a summer make, the saying goes, nor does a warm, sunny day or two in March guarantee that spring is here to stay.  April came in with cold, blustery winds, lashing snow squalls, all kinds of drama from the skies.  Then a day of mellow warmth, but overnight, a hard freeze, and in the forecast, more wintry weather.  It makes for lively conversation at the dump or the hardware store, but overall, it’s pretty much same as it ever was.  Maybe there are actually regions where spring slides mildly into place in a calm and predictable progression, but this ain’t one of them….

However:  there has been enough spring-like weather that the ground has thawed, and warmed enough to push forth a few greens shoots.  Chives are always the first things to come back in the herb garden, and stinging nettles take the vanguard among the wild edibles.  I was able to gather a handful of each last evening, and we added them to a simple dinner comprised of recombined leftovers:  lentils, some chickpeas in a spicy broth, to which I added some of the excellent German wieners that we picked up at the Chetek Café.

I started by dicing up and rendering off a some homemade salt pork, and to the drippings added diced potato, carrot, some chopped celery and shallot.  Browned off the sliced wieners and then in went the lentils, chickpeas and broth.  Simmered for 10 minutes, until the potatoes were just cooked through.  Then just before serving I brought it back up to a simmer and added the chopped nettles—baby nettle tips, really, the most delectable kind of nettles.

I enjoyed the fact that lentils and nettles are almost anagrams.  And we enjoyed immensely a warm and comforting plate of food that far transcended any usual notion of leftovers.  I sprinkled some chopped chives over the soup, and they added a fresh, vibrant pop—the first chives of the year are definitely the best.  They had me thinking a baked potato dinner later in the week might be a good idea.

Chives also went into a simple salad dressing along with—get this—Wisconsin-grown Meyer lemon.  You read that right.  On a quick getaway to Madison this past weekend we visited the Dane County winter farmers market.  And while this indoor market is a tiny fraction the size of the magnificent summer market that sprawls all around the capitol square, its grass-roots populism making a mockery of the craven shenanigans that miserably unfold beneath the capitol dome (ahem), there was still lots of great meat, cheese, and produce.  We didn’t buy a lot, but came away with some beautiful lettuce and a Meyer lemon that we purchased from a honey vendor.  It came from a tree that I think he said was planted in 1964, in a pot, of course, to shelter indoors during the Wisconsin winter.  Not exactly the kind of thing you expect to find at a northern winter farmers market, but a lovely surprise.  We were lucky to be at the market early enough to score one.

The first green harvests are always such a delight, even if they are small, scarcely more than garnish.  A chef writing in the New York Times recently, trying to sell the idea that hard, pink, winter tomatoes were worth your money and cooking efforts, went so far as to argue that we live in a “post-seasonal world."  Uhn-uhn, chef, you’re wrong.  Maybe you live in a non-seasonal food world, but only because you’re not looking, or trying, hard enough.  Out here in the frigid sticks, the "seasonal world" is pretty hard to avoid.  Not that I would want to.


Text and photos copyright 2016 by Brett Laidlaw

"Tart Is Good!": Ode on Rhubarb and A Wild Spin on Rhubarb Chutney

Kim Ode (pron. OH-dee) was in our neighborhood last weekend to present a demo and talk about cooking with rhubarb, which has become her tart, seasonal calling card since she published Rhubarb Renaissance, the first title in the  Northern Plate series from the Minnesota Historical Society Press, in 2012.  Kim charmed a full house with stories about her rhubarb journey, from being gulled by a devious cousin into taking a big bite of a raw, naked stalk in her South Dakota childhood, to discovering the affinities and aversions of culinary rhubarb (ginger and shrimp, yes; beef, not so much).  As someone who has presented a few cooking demos and classes, I was amazed by Kim’s ability to measure and mix ingredients for savory rhubarb and cheese biscuits—a fairly precise formulation—all the while keeping up a calm, conversational patter in front of nearly 30 people.  When I expressed my admiration for her on-stage calm and efficiency, she replied: “Well, there have been incidents…”.

Bide-A-While rhubarb patch

Several people in the audience mentioned that their rhubarb patches had been propagated from divisions gathered from a parent’s patch, or grandma’s garden, the family farmstead, which led me to think that that’s the true sense of an heirloom vegetable, one literally passed down from generation to generation, by hand.  And that may be why so many people have a sentimental attachment to rhubarb, and why they’re so grateful to Kim Ode for showing them how to take rhubarb beyond the typical strawberry-rhubarb concoctions (Kim included one, count it, exactly one rhubarb-strawberry recipe in her book).

 
In addition to the biscuits, which baked up brown and crusty, with the cheese and rhubarb dancing dos-si-dos in an appealingly chewy crumb, Kim mixed up a kale salad with pickled rhubarb.  I prepared a couple of Kim’s recipes to round out a rhubarbish buffet.  I made Gingery Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake, and in the course of preparing it, it occurred to me that I had never, ever, in my whole entire life, actually baked a cake from scratch.  How could this be?  And yet I swear it is so.  I sort of freaked out when that realization started to sink in—it was about the time I realized that the butter I was trying to cream with sugar should have been much softer, as it just glommed on to the beater and the sides of the bowl, and went dismally round and round, not becoming creamed and fluffy, at all.  But I forged ahead, and in the end it came out well, delicious, in fact—wh ich is a testament to a well-written recipe, if even a total neophyte bad at following instructions (moi) can have success.

  

And I made a rhubarb chutney that Kim suggests be served on crostini spread with a goat cheese-cream cheese blend and garnished with prosciutto.  I simplified by serving it on crackers and 86ing the ham.  It was fabulous, addictive, I dare say, sweet, tart, and spicy, flavored with ginger, garlic, and jalapeno, and bulked up with dried apricots.
 

It got me to thinking that I could easily substitute wild and local ingredients for some of the chutney components, to make it more Trout Caviar friendly.  So I made a batch back home in which I subbed maple syrup for the brown sugar, chopped ramps in place of garlic; dried apples from our trees took the place of the apricots, and some kick-ass fermented chile paste my friend Melinda gave me brought a throbbing heat.  My palate leans toward the savory more than the sweet, so I upped the tartness with extra rhubarb.  I firmly endorse Kim’s book-signing tagline:  “Tart is good!”

One other wild element:  little bits of peeled wood nettle stem gave some crunch to the chutney’s texture and made a nice color contrast, the pale green nettle nuggets playing against the pink background, reminiscent of the pink and green madras plaid sports jackets and shorts my preppie friends used to favor, back in the day.  Whatever happened to all the preppies (ou sont les preppies d’antan…?)?  Wood nettles are one of my favorite wild greens (I say this every year about this time).  You can use the leaves like any young greens, though they are delicate when young, so be careful not to overcook.  Then there are the stems which, when peeled—and they peel very easily—are crunchy crisp and mildly sweet, haricots verts du bois, if you will, or as I’m also wont to say, my favorite trailside crudité (goodness, I’m quite French-y and rhyme-y this morning!).

Not to overlook the obvious: wood nettles sting at least as vigorously as stinging nettles, and like stinging nettles, they lose their sting when exposed to heat, as in blanching in boiling water for a minute.

The result of my wild alterations to the chutney: quite, quite edible.  And beautiful.  We served it with some farmstead cheese from Cosmic Wheel Creamery, the new venture from Rama Hoffpauir and Josh Bryceson, growers at Turnip Rock Farm.  

Kim noted that in working the rhubarb circuit she has found that very few people are on the fence about rhubarb, that it’s generally love or hate.  But me, I’m still kind of in the middle.  I am by no means a rhubarb lover.  I find I don’t care much for the typical rhubarb desserts (I did enjoy my upside-down cake, but maybe that’s just baker’s vanity!).  My fondest rhubarb memories still center around the patch we had at my childhood home in Eden Prairie, and eating stalks nibble by nibble, each tiny bite equal parts sugar and rhubarb.  But I’m intrigued by its uses in savory applications, like this chutney, and I’ll probably experiment a bit more each spring.  Call me rhubarb-curious.
 

Forager's lunch on black cherry slab

This chutney is great in Kim’s original recipe, a dollop on a crostini or cracker first spread with a 1:1 mix of goat cheese and cream cheese.  It also nicely complements a well-flavored aged cheese, and, for what it’s worth, thinly sliced smoked venison.

Wild and Local Rhubarb Chutney (after Kim Ode & Rhubarb Renaissance)

1/3 cup maple syrup

2 cups rhubarb in 1" pieces

4 ramp bulbs minced

2 tablespoons fresh ginger root minced

1/3 cup dried apples chopped small

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Pinch salt

Chile or sambal to taste, or chopped fresh jalapeno

1/4 cup wood nettle stems, peeled, chopped in 1/4" pieces

Combine all but nettle stems. Bring to a boil and stir until the rhubarb starts to break down and exude its juices (rhubarb is about 90%  water). Then simmer for 8-10 minutes, until it is thick and jammy. Add the nettle stems and cook 1 minute more. Cool thoroughly before serving. Best if made a few hours to a day ahead. Will keep for a couple weeks in the fridge.  Makes about 2 cups.


Text and photos copyright 2015 by Brett Laidlaw

Weeds Worth the Pain

I'm bringing the blog out of hibernation to write in praise of one of my favorite wild greens, wood nettles, laportea canadensis.  I've probably had something to say about this under-appreciated cousin of the better known stinging nettle pretty much every spring.  My favorite time to harvest it is just after it has emerged, at 8 to 10 inches high, say, when it has little sting and you can consume the whole plant, adding it to a soup of wild greens or tossing it with pasta.  Wood nettles are usually up by the second week of May, and can be found in that infant state through the end of the month, depending upon your latitude.

I managed to gather a few harvests of baby wood nettles this year, but for most of May torrential rains and various obligations kept me out of the woods.  By the time I got back to check my wood nettle patches, most of the plants were up at least 18 inches, with their broad, delicate leaves fanning out widely, and their potent sting in full force.  I've said it before, but it bears repeating:  even though there's no sting in the name of wood nettles, there's a wicked one in the plant, worse than stinging nettles, in my opinion.  Maybe I've just had more bad experiences with them, as they tend to grow thick and tall near trout streams, and there's also an abundant patch of them guarding my favorite chanterelle patch.  They can sting you fiercely even through your jeans.  Beware!

Those little hairs deliver a potent sting in mature wood nettles.

But even though the wood nettles are getting tall now, they still provide excellent eating, which you can't really say for stinging nettles of the same size.  Before the plants flower and reach full height, which can be four to five feet, the leaves are still tender enough to make a versatile cooking green, and there's an added bonus product, what I've been calling "haricots verts du bois," the slender green beans of the woods:  it's the upper stems of wood nettles plants, which, when blanched and peeled, make a delightfully mild and crunchy vegetable.

Peeled (mostly) stems.

 In fact, you can eat the peeled stems raw, too, but a quick blanching in boiling water removes the sting and makes them very easy to handle.  I don't bother with gloves when picking the nettle tops, but long sleeves are probably a good idea, at least until you get the knack for picking them.  Wood nettle leaves grow in rather widely spaced tiers along the stem, which allows you to reach in, carefully, and grasp the stem about a foot down from the top.  Don't I get stung?  Am I possessed of digits of steel?  Yes I do, and no, I'm not.  I do feel a bit of sting on my fingertips, but the fingertips, at least mine, are not all that sensitive to wood nettles's sting.  So I take hold of the stem and bring my fingers up until I feel where the stem breaks easily.  As with asparagus, this is how I know that the stem is tender.

I bend it over to snap it, and as I pull it away the skin usually peels off from one side--that's how easily they peel.  When the leaves are big, stuffing them into my sack without getting stung is the most perilous operation.  So, yes, there's usually some pain involved, but it doesn't last long, and for me, the reward is more than worth it.

Once I get my prickly salad home, I dump the sack into a big bowl and wash it thoroughly--use tongs to agitate, but be gentle if you want to keep the stem sections intact, for they are delicate and break easily.  By this time, having been jumbled around in your sack and swished in water, a lot of the stinging capacity is gone, and then a dunk in boiling water does away with the rest.  The liquid you blanch the nettles in makes a tasty tea, similar to stinging nettles tea, perhaps a bit milder.  I add a little maple or, in this case, birch syrup to sweeten it a tad.

You'll notice that you can still see some of the little hairs on the unpeeled stem sections, even after blanching.  There's no sting there anymore, as I've said, but you may taste a little prickle on the tongue as you eat them. This may be an acquired taste; myself, I don't mind it.

The blanched wood nettle leaves can be used anywhere you'd use spinach, or young turnip or mustard greens.  To me, the flavor is much superior to spinach, and it doesn't make your teeth feel funny....  With the stems, pretend that they are wild haricots verts, or chop them into anything to which you want to add some crunch, from tuna salad to salsa to deviled eggs.

Or to soup, such as a bowl of ramen, which is a common lunch at this forager's house.  And when I say ramen, I'm talking the packaged kind with dry noodles and little flavoring packets.  But not the 29-cent kind.  No, with my dorm-room dining days well behind me, I now splurge for the 99-cent to $1.39 per package ramen.  Some of these deluxe instant lunches come with three count 'em three different little flavor packets--the powdered stuff, maybe some kind of oily or bean paste stuff, and one with bits of dehydrated vegetables.  Livin' large!

To fancy up my ramen just a bit, I sauté some kind of onion (or leek, ramp, shallot) in a bit of oil, add a good teaspoon of sambal, or better, our homemade chile-garlic paste, then add water, and the noodles.  I'll usually add about half the packet of powdered soup base (can't imagine how salty it would be if you used the whole thing, because it's pretty salty with half).  A minute or two before the noodles are done I toss in some greens, today, of course, wood nettles.  And today I also had some veiled oyster mushrooms that I found in our woods on my nettle-gathering walk yesterday.  These are a lesser oyster, for though they can get fairly large, the meat of the cap is thin, and they're pretty chewy.  Good flavor there, though, and a good textural addition.  A few slices of radish and spring onion, maybe a few drops of sesame oil and/or a dusting of hua jiao, because it's all about the garnish!  Slurp on.

Working in the outdoor forager's lab is very pleasant duty this time of year.  Forager's assistant Lily keeping half an eye on things.

Stalking the Wild Spaghetti

The topic today is wood nettles, but wood nettles, while somewhat dangerous in the midsummer woods, are not terribly active, at any time.  Hence the Euell Gibbons-esque title, to lend some drama to the proceedings.  In fact there's a good deal of drama in our northern woods now, though of a subtle sort.  There are scenes of absolute sylvan splendor to be relished, as ostrich ferns unfurl, almost perceptibly, and trilliums blaze in gaudy constellations across the forest forest, accented by purple phlox, Virginia bluebells, wild geraniums.  Sometimes the drama is more apparent, as when I spooked a knobby-kneed fawn, a perfect little silken, speckled Bambi, from its hiding place just a few feet away from me.  The doe was no doubt watching nearby, but didn't make a sound.  Baby deer clumsily found its feet, and clattered off into the underbrush.

I found patches of ramps in surprisingly good shape, and harvested a weighty sack full for fresh eating and pickling.  As I dug those ramps with my  hori-hori, bar none the perfect tool for the job, I was struck by the density of life on the forest floor.  Where a few weeks ago this bit of ground had been nearly a blank slate, only sparsely adorned with the first trout lilies and ramps knifing through the loam, now there was vegetation in a stunning variety of shapes, colors, and textures crowding every square inch of earth.  When the ramps were at their peak, you couldn't imagine that there was room for any other kind of plant to grow, but now they share that space with the ostrich, lady, and bracken ferns; with rue and anemones, bloodroot and trilliums; wild ginger, solomon's seal true and false, mayapple, skunk cabbage, swamp saxifrage, nettles stinging and wood; and a couple dozen other plants that I don't even know the names of.  How remarkably rich that soil must be, to support that density and diversity of flora, and each plant so finely adapted to its circumstance.

This is a beautiful time of year in the woods, indeed, and it must be cherished while it lasts, for, like the adorable and loving child who transforms, seemingly overnight, into a gangling, pimpled, sneering teen, the spring woods come summer are an inhospitable place, the nettles eye-high, flowers all fallen and rotted, every sort of vicious insect out to suck your blood.  Now, it's nice.  You should make time for a walk.

On that walk you will find plenty of wild food, and one of my springtime favorites, the aforementioned wood nettle, laportea canadensis, is both abundant and prime for the picking.  Right now you'll find fresh new shoots as well as plants that have reached knee-high.  Both can be used; with the new sproutlets, you pinch them off just above the soil.  With the larger plants I reach down the

stem six or eight inches from the top and remove stem and upper leaves where stem breaks easily.  The smallest plants haven't really developed their stinging quality yet, and so present no threat to the forager.  Those knee-high specimens, though, can make their presence felt if you brush wrist or forearm against the leaves, so use caution.

What's great about wood nettles, and what elevates them over stinging nettles, in my humble, is their versatility.  With wood nettles, both the leaves and tender stems are edible and delicious.  It's sort of as if asparagus had leaves.  Or think of it as wild broccoli rabe, only leafier.  It is excellent steamed or blanched, then simply tossed with oil or butter, and I really like it topped with ramp brown butter--melt some good butter, and as it starts to take on color, toss in a handful of chopped ramps, cook until insanely fragrant, add to nettles.  Again steamed or blanched, it makes a lovely green bed--dressed or not--for a roast chicken or a grilled steak, chop, or fish.  Really, it's an all-purpose green, like spinach with character, and a little prickle (but it doesn't make your teeth feel funny).

While some reference books describe stinging and wood nettles as preferring different habitats, I often find them growing literally side by side, both in shady forests and in sunny, open areas along the trout rivers I fish.   They clearly share a preference for rich, riparian soils, and given that environment, are indifferent to sun or shade.  This provides a good opportunity to harvest both kinds at once, and do some comparative taste testing of your own. (By the way, if I haven't mentioned them often enough, any serious and/or aspiring forager must have the books of  Sam Thayer and  Teresa Marrone; Sam has excellent back to back chapters on stinging and wood nettles in his first book, The Forager's Harvest, and Teresa's Abundantly Wild has both practical info and appetizing recipes.)

A lot of the wild green of spring are quite, how shall we say, elongated?  Attenuated, Modiglianish, if you will.  Wood nettles, ramps, and dandelion greens all share a generally longitudinal quality.  That got me thinking of them as something like wild spaghetti, so I cooked up a mess to toss with noodles, and I was pleased with the result.

See below the recipe for more wood nettle images.

Pasta with Wild Greens
Serves one as a main course, two as a first course or element of a multi-course meal

Handful dandelion greens
8 small to medium ramps with their greens
12 stems wood nettle tops, the top 6 to 8 inches of young plants
1 1/2 tablespoons sunflower or olive oil
2 ounces dry pasta (I used capellini; thin Chinese egg noodles would work), cooked to your preference of doneness
a few shavings of parmesan, aged gouda, or another hard cheese
salt and pepper
coarse breadcrumbs toasted in a skillet with a bit of oil

If the dandelion greens are quite bitter, blanch them in boiling water for 30 seconds, drain, refresh in cold water, and squeeze out excess water.  Heat a large heavy skillet and add the oil, then the ramps.  Leave the ramps to cook on one side until they start to get a bit charred, then turn them over to get some color on the other side.  When they are nicely brown--even a bit black in spots is okay--add the nettles and a good pinch of salt, and stir them about until they wilt down.  Add the dandelion greens and sauté vigorously until your kitchen is redolent of ramp aromas and a bit smoky--cook the greens hard, in other words.

Remove the pan from the heat.  Add the cooked, drained pasta to the skillet and toss to mix well.  Serve topped with the breadcrumbs, shaved, cheese, and a few grinds of black pepper.


Text and photos copyright 2012 by Brett Laidlaw

Very young wood nettle tip.

Bide-A-Wee wood nettles.  Everything above ground is edible at this stage.

Whitewater wood nettles, late April; SE Minnesota is usually a couple weeks ahead of our northern Dunn County woods.

Obligatory showy trillium shot.

Wood nettles and ramps in the pan.

Savage Soupage

I also like the sound of potage sauvage, but I'm trying to wean myself from always running to the French.  That one will go in the title pantry, though, and I'm sure it will find its way out.  This is one of the most foraged dishes I've ever made, although, wild as it is, it did not require a lot of foraging far afield.  Indeed, much of it--morels, nettles, dandelion greens--came from our yard or near outskirts.

We had a nice, surprising fruiting of morels twenty feet from the house, near some cottonwoods.  Stinging nettles encroach at every edge of the yard, and our dandelion crop is amazing--not just the sheer number of plants, but the size of the leaves, and their mildness.  I haven't done enough with them this year.

As I was putting this soup together I worried that it might turn out to be a bit challenging, might lean toward the medicinal or excessively "healthy" side.  Ramps, nettles, dandelion greens, and fiddleheads all have distinctive flavors, which I had never tried to incorporate in one recipe before.  The morels were there to lend their musky mellowness, modulate the highs (bitter dandelions) and lows (earthy fiddleheads); and then, there's just the magic of soup--and of cream (which I may have mentioned recently...).  I needn't have worried, not a bit.  This weedy wild soupage was far more comforting than challenging, though the textures of all the wild greens still intrigued.  A garnish of dandelion petals brightened things up and removed at least one of those darned weeds from my yard.   One down, 600 trillion to go....

Stinging nettle tips left, wood nettles right.

A big part of the greenery in the soup was wood nettles, the lesser known cousin (sort of) of stinging nettles. These are at a lovely size in our woods now, and not terribly threatening, yet.  I'll have more to say about these in my next dispatch.

I had some cress I could have thrown in, but with four kinds of greens already, I refrained.  I cooked up some wild rice, thinking I might need something to give the soup more body, but there was no room for it, and it would have diluted this full-on forager's feast.

Savage Soupage
serves four

6 ostrich fern fiddleheads, each with about 6 inches of stalk, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 good handful of nice big dandelion greens, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup chopped ramp bulbs and stems
Greens from the ramps, sliced
3 ounces fresh morels
1 1/2 tablespoons cooking fat--butter, bacon or duck fat, or olive oil
4 cups (loosely packed) young wood nettles
1 1/2 cups (loosely packed) stinging nettle tips
3 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
salt

Blanch the fiddleheads in salted boiling water for 5 minutes.  Drain and refresh in ice water.  If your dandelion greens seem quite bitter, blanch them for 1 minute, drain and refresh, and drain well.

Chop most of the morels, reserving a couple of caps to cut in rings and fry for garnish.  In a large saucepan or dutch oven, heat the cooking fat and add the ramp bulbs and stems.  Sauté for a minute or two, until they start to shrink a bit, then add the morels and a good pinch of salt.  Cook until the morels shrink and start to brown a bit, 3 to 4 minutes.  Add the dandelion greens and stir them in for a minute.  Add the wood nettles and ramp tops (save a bit of the greens for garnish) and stir to wilt them.  Add the stock and a couple of pinches of salt.   Add the stinging nettle tips and fiddleheads.  Bring to a boil and turn down to a simmer.  Simmer, partly covered, for 20 minutes.  Add the cream and taste for salt.  Simmer for 10 minutes.

Just before serving, fry the reserved rings of morel caps in a bit of butter until browned.  Garnish the soup with these, a few bits of ramp greens, and some dandelion petals, if you like.

Text and photos copyright 2012 by Brett Laidlaw

Sichuan Nettles Salad with Charred Ramps Dressing

My ramp explorations this spring have been taking me down Chinese roads. The oily ramp cakes started me thinking that way. For a bachelor dinner the night I whipped up those cakes I marinated some sliced pork shoulder, chopped up a mess of ramps, shredded a bit of cabbage, stir-fried it all up, sauced it with a mix of soy sauce, vinegar, rice wine, sugar, and cornstarch, served it over a bowl of rice. The ramp flavor permeated the dish utterly, and this one-off dish was one of the most Chinese tasting things I've made in a long time--and I know Chinese, having lived, taught, and traveled in Sichuan province for a total of more than a year in the late 80s-early 90s. By Chinese tasting I mean: not like Leeann Chin's.

That ramps convey a Chinese flavor is not really that surprising. Their closest domestic analog, to me, is garlic chives, sometimes called Chinese chives, and often used in Chinese sauces, dumpling fillings, and the like. In this dressing the chopped ramps are lightly charred in oil, bringing out their sweet side, along with a smoky edge. This combination of sweet, sour, salty, hot, and rampy would make your pooch's rawhide chews palatable; on blanched young nettles it's a springtime combination made in heaven...or Chengdu.

This is what I call a nettles "tip""--the top leaves with a couple inches of stem attached.  Tender and delicious, once blanched, on young stinging nettles plants.

Sub other types of salad greens for the nettles, if you like, or use the dressing on blanched green beans, fava beans, or asparagus.

Sichuan Nettles Salad with Charred Ramp Dressing

2 medium ramps, chopped to 1/4-inch pieces, about 1/3 cup
3 cups loosely packed young stinging nettle tips and leaves

1 tablespoon hot chile oil (or add 1 teaspoon of sambal chile paste and a little more oil when you cook the ramps)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons canola or peanut oil
ground roasted Sichuan pepper, optional

Rinse the nettles very well in several changes of water, especially if they were gathered from a sandy area.  Bring a pot of water to a boil, add the nettles, and cook for 1 minute.  Drain the nettles and shock in cold water.  Drain well--save the cooking water for tea or broth, if you like--or spin in a salad spinner to remove excess water.  Place the nettles in a mixing bowl.

Heat the canola or peanut oil in a small saucepan.  When it is hot add the ramps and cook over high heat for 1 minute, until some of the ramp pieces look a bit charred. Remove from heat.  Add the chile oil, soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar and mix well.  Add this dressing to the nettles and mix well.  Sprinkle with the Sichuan pepper, if you like, and serve.

Text and photos copyright 2012 by Brett Laidlaw