It may be a slow start to spring this year but it’s wild garlic season, so here is a recipe for wild garlic pesto, always handy to have in the fridge, plus it freezes beautifully.
You will find wild garlic in damp woodlands and graveyards between March and May. Don’t worry if you are unsure about what to look for, you will smell it before you see it. Its like a thick green grass with white flowers blooming later. Both the flowers and the leaves are delicious (the flowers make a pretty addition to salad). For this recipe I use just the leaves.
Ingredients:
100g wild garlic leaves
75g Parmesan cheese
50g pine nuts
150 ml rapeseed oil (or olive oil if you prefer)
salt and pepper to taste
Method:
Wash the leaves really well and dry them off.
Cut the parmesan into chunks and blitz in a food processor, add in the pine nuts and blitz again. Then put that mixture to one side while you blitz the leaves. My own blender isn’t a super duper one so I do it in small batches. Then when its all done pop the pine nuts and cheese back in, start adding in the rapeseed oil steadily and then some salt and pepper to taste. Store it in a kilner jar in the fridge, it keeps for ages this way.
We have it in wraps, stir fries, on naan bread, garlic bread, its a sauce for steak and, on sunny days, try it drizzled over some prawns and cooked on a BBQ and you will see why I am blatantly lying to loved ones about the store in the freezer!
