If you love ramps, you have to try fermenting their green, unripe seeds. During July in the Midwest, ramps will start to lower their flowers and make seeds. Like some other seeds, if you catch them at the right moment they’re tender enough to be eaten whole. When harvesting, you’ll want to make sure that you’re…
Pickles, Preserves, Etc
Green Black Walnut Jam / Preserves
Green walnut jam isn’t a jam in the typical sense most people will recognize. A preserve of whole, unripe walnuts in syrup, it’s one of the most interesting things I’ve made with the unripe black walnuts to date. Unlike other recipes that use green walnuts, like nocino, ketchup, or vin de noix, walnut jam allows…
Pickled Lampascioni Recipes (Hyacinth bulbs)
Pickled hyacinth bulbs, known as lampascioni, flavored with herbs, garlic and chili, are one of the most interesting antipasti I’ve had. After I got some of the actual species of hyacinth that foragers cook in Italy, the first thing I did was try out some traditional recipes. Mostly these are pickled, or preserved in oil…
Ramp Leaf Garum (Vegan Fish Sauce)
Ramp leaf garum is a fermented, plant-based substitute for fish sauce made from ramp leaves, salt, water, and time. A few of my chef friends have been trying to make vegetarian fish sauce recipes using different things to replicate the umami flavor. Most of the techniques include lots of ingredients like coconut aminos, shiitake or…
Cheremsha: Siberian-Style Fermented Ramp Leaves
Cheremsha, also known as Tjeremsha and Черемша are a wild allium used to make one of the most interesting traditional foods I’ve tasted to date. Essentially, you can think of them as lacto-fermented ramp leaves, although the traditional plant used to make the ferment is Allium victorialis-the victory onion, reputed to have been brought to…
Walnut Wine or Vin de Noix
Vin de noix, also known as walnut wine, or green walnut wine, is arguably the most well-known use of green walnuts in France. It’s a cousin to the more well-known nocino, the Italian liquor made with green walnuts. If you’ve made nocino and liked it, and have wondered about the French version, I’m here to…
Ramp Leaf Infused Soy Sauce (Fermented)
Soy sauce makes just about everything taste better, and there’s a lot of options to pick from. There’s aged soy sauce, shoyu and tamari, for starters, and then, pertaining to this post, there’s flavored soys. You can add soy sauce infused with ramp or wild onion leaves to the list. Before I made this, the…
How to Make Foraged Vanilla Extract
Wild vanilla extract. Yes, you read that right. Everyone knows how indispensable vanilla is, especially chefs who buy the whole beans. It’s also no secret that the price has been rising, and a pound of vanilla beans can now run over 300$ a pound, which, depending on what year you compare it to, along with…
