I will get back to the Ireland adventure in a day or so, but I thought it time I share a recipe. And this one is local! I love when the local crops start creeping in to the markets. The first ones to appear in the city are the wild leeks, lamb’s quarters (yummy edible weed)and my personal favourite- fiddleheads. There are four reasons I love fiddleheads:
- They have the best name of any vegetable
- The look really cool
- They are green
- I can harvest them from the land right outside the front door of my cottage.
Fiddleheads are the unfurled fronds of a fern. As the fern grows- it will slowly unfurl into the shape we know and love. The biggest challenge with fiddleheads is cleaning them. First remove all the yellow/brown skin. Be sure to clean them thoroughly. They grow close to the ground and therefore have the potential to have sand and dirt trapped in their perfect little coils. I then boil them twice with a change of water between boilings which helps remove some of the bitterness. This step boiling step is optional though after some food poisoning scares in the early 90′s this is recommended. I skip this and just go straight to the cooking. All up to you.
I feel like I have to eat them as much as I can in the first couple weeks of May for after that- they are gone.
I keep my fiddlehead cooking easy peezy and simply sautee them with some olive oil, garlic and parsley.
This basic reparation brings out the delicious flavor of the Fiddlehead with a minimum of effort.
Garlic Fiddleheads
2 cups Fiddleheads
1 or 2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tbs finely chopped fresh parsley
Salt and black pepper to taste
- Trim any brown ends off of the fern shoots and wash them- I suggest washing in cold water, pulling the paper-like brown skin off as you go then pat dry.
- Heat half of the oil in a pan over medium heat.
- Add the fiddleheads and turn the heat up a little.
- Toss and stir for about 5 minutes.
- Add remaining oil, garlic, and parsley and continue cooking until you can smell the garlic and the ferns are tender.
- Season with salt and pepper and serve up this local goodness.
Photo courtesy of: www.veganyumyum.com
Never had fiddleheads, never even seen them in the store!
But I’ve been coming across them a lot lately (on TV, the internet, blogs). Gotta get me some!
I missed out on fiddleheads this season
Yours look beautiful though!
I LOVE fiddleheads. They’re such a treat because of their brief, brief season.
Fiddlehead virgin here. Never even seen these little buggers. They are too cute! I’m on the hunt now…
Sounds wonderful! Thank you so much for posting this, we just bought fiddleheads for the first time last week and I wasn’t really sure what to do with them. I steamed them and they were good, but this sounds better – I love garlic!
Made these fiddleheads last night and they are delightful! Much better than just steaming them!
i just made fiddlehead lasagna,just exchange spinach for a couple layers of fiddleheads..mmm good..now im freezing a few baggies full for later..love mother nature..