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Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.

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Dotty’s Wild Green Salad

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Dotty's Wild Green SaladI never liked salads as a kid, they were always like watery, tasteless lettuce. If I ever did eat a salad it was assassinated with dressing, croutons and cheese, since it’s hard to make fat, salt and carbs taste bad. Even through my teenage years and into college, I still wondered why people ate salads.

I think it was until I started working at an Italian restaurant where we made a salad with warm spinach dressed with a hot pancetta vinaigrette that I actually enjoyed my first salad, but honestly I just enjoyed it since it tasted like crispy pork niblets.

wild lamb's quarter, edible lamb's quarter,

Lamb’s quarter often makes up the backbone of this salad. These are the whole clusters of tender new growth, which will continue to grow throughout the season. I pick new growth clusters of Amaranth the same way.

I didn’t really understand what a salad could become until I tasted one made for me by my girlfriend one evening a few years ago. My girlfriend and her family live on a farm her mother Dotty started, filled with different gardens, some with lettuces, some filled with flowers and herbs, others on top of a hill have vegetables, there’s about 5-6 in all.

My favorite species of chickweed-the big fleshy type. These are a great addition.

My favorite species of chickweed/Stellaria-the big fleshy type. These are a great addition.

My favorite gardens are the ones where she’s allowed the wild greens to grow alongside the cultivated ones. Even the compost piles are like gardens in themselves, surrounded by thick carpets of chickweed and topped with the healthiest bushes of lamb’s quarter, amaranth and nettles. It’s a place where wild greens are celebrated and eaten with just as much enthusiasm as any other green. Dotty still picks many of the greens herself, and brings around little care-packages to the rest of the family like a home-grown mesclun mix, but it’s light years ahead of that the thin lettuces in a plastic box, bound to die a day or two after you purchase them.

Back to the salad.

My girlfriend had opened up one of her mom’s lettuce mixes to dress for dinner. She stirred together a simple dressing of mustard, vinegar, and oil, and a pinch of salt and pepper, then added the greens. I wasn’t expecting anything crazy, I mean it’s just salad right?

I took a bite. Here and there were bursts of flavor from whole herbs, a piece of basil here, a sprig of cilantro there. It was interesting, it was so simple. Most of all it was exciting, I’d never eaten anything like it. Whole clusters of lambs quarter and amaranth were like some kind of half-vegetable half-plant hybrid, crunchy with lots of texture and they didn’t wilt and get soggy like typical lettuce. I remember slowing down, enjoying every bite, and then getting seconds.

To get the real effect of this, you won’t want to use cultivated spring mix, or traditional lettuce, part of the fun is the texture of the young growth of all the different greens, punctuated by a few fresh herbs here and there. I never use the same ratios of greens twice, but I almost always use most of the same varieties. Here’s some of my favorites to pick and choose from.

My Favorite Wild Salad Greens and Ingredients

  • Amaranth
  • Lamb’s Quarter
  • Jewelweed leaves and flowers
  • Chickweed
  • Purslane
  • Dandelion greens and flowers (I always tear these into 1 inch pieces since the stem can be tough)
  • Hop Buds
  • Nasturtiums (technically cultivated I but I like them in the salad)
  • Flowers, like marigolds, nasturtiums day lily, roses, borage, comfrey, violets, and milkweed
  • Quickweed/Frenchweed
  • Trout Lily and Ramp Leaves (available in Spring)
  • Wild watercress (available in Spring)
  • Blanched, marinated fiddlehead ferns, or pickled (in the Spring)

Dotty's Wild Green Salad

Print Recipe
4.5 from 2 votes

Dotty's Foraged Green Salad

Serves 4
Prep Time20 mins
Course: Appetizer, Salad, Side Dish
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Foraged salad, Salade sauvage, Wild green salad
Servings: 4

Ingredients

  • 12 ounces mixed wild greens washed and dried
  • Flowers to garnish, like day lilies, borage, and nasturtiums
  • Fresh herbs to taste  like cilantro or basil, torn
  • Salad oil like extra virgin or virgin sunflower, to taste
  • Vinegar like champagne white wine or fresh lemon juice, to taste, I often use a vinegar that's a bit sweet, like white balsamic, a berry vinegar, or regular balsamic
  • Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Instructions

  • Put the greens, flowers and herbs in a salad bowl, then drizzle with the oil and vinegar or lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Toss, then taste a bit to double check the seasoning for acid and salt, adjust as needed, then divide the salad equally between four chilled salad plates and serve immediately.

Notes

Use whatever greens you have here, an amazing salad can only be made from amazing greens. Don't even think about using bottled dressing.

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FORAGER | CHEF®
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Author: The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora
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Alan Bergo
Baby’s first homegrown mushrooms! Backyard wine Baby’s first homegrown mushrooms! Backyard wine caps on hardwood sawdust from my lumberjack buddy.

Next up blewits. Spawn from @northsporemushrooms

#winecaps #strophariaaeruginosa #allthemushroomtags
It’s wild cherry season. I’ll be picking from It’s wild cherry season. I’ll be picking from my favorite spot tomorrow a.m. and have room for a couple helpers. It’s at an event on a farm just south of St. Cloud. 

If you’re interested send me a message and I’ll raffle off the spots. Plenty of cherries to go around. I’ll be leading a short plant walk around the farm too. 

#chokecherries #foraging #prunusvirginiana #summervibes
Special thanks to the beach in Ashland for hooking Special thanks to the beach in Ashland for hooking it up with on-site garnishes. Beach pea flowers taste strong and leguminous, similar to vetch, or like a rich tasting pea shoot. 

#lathyrusjaponicus #beachpeas #peaflower #foraging #northshore #bts
Great, long day of filming in near the south shore Great, long day of filming in near the south shore of Lake Superior yesterday. 

Blueberries were sparse, and some kind of blight seems to be affecting the serviceberries. Chanterelles weren’t as good as 2020, but they were there. 

Quick dip in the Lake Superior after we broke set was a bonus. 

W/ @barebonesliving  @misterberndt @jesseroesler

#barebonesliving #foraging #lakesuperiorrocks #serviceberries #chanterelles #bts
Green ramp seed make a great lactoferment. Just pu Green ramp seed make a great lactoferment. Just put the green seeds in brine in a jar, leave for 2 weeks. 

After they’re sour they can be water bath processed, although I’ve stored them at room temp without an issue too. 

Finished product is great minced or puréed into places where you’d like garlic, capers, or both. 

Makes a great tzatziki with a little crumbled, dried bee balm. 

#tzatziki #ramps #rampseeds #foraging #fermentation
If you move quick you might still be able to get s If you move quick you might still be able to get some unripe, green ramp seeds. I saw a bunch yesterday near Lake Superior. 

At the right stage, they’re tender and the seed hasn’t started to form. 

They have the same potent garlicky flavor as the leaves and bulbs of the plant. 

I only harvest seeds from places where I haven’t harvest harvested bulbs and leaves the same year. 

#ramps #foraging #alliumtricoccum #seedhead
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