A few weeks ago my Aunt and Uncle showed me that the Three Cornered Wild Garlic is now back in season in their garden. Since then I’ve started spotting it everywhere. We pass it on the school run and have some in our own garden as well.
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| The other variety of wild garlic, Allium ursinum or Wood Garlic. Lots of this grows in Monkhaven. |
Allium triquetrum is also know as Three Cornered leek. At first glance it looks very similar to “Wild Garlic”, Allium Ursinum (pictured above), however look closely and you will see stripes down the middle of the petals and that the stem has three corners (making a triangular cross section) which gives it strength and helps it to thrive in coastal areas. It’s a very invasive weed so you are “doing your bit” by eating them. All parts of the plant are edible from the bulb to the flower. It grows in meadows, on riverbanks and near the sea (we find most of ours on the road leading away from the sea). We pick it from a spot where it is away from the road (less chemicals) and higher up (away from dogs). They look a bit like white bluebells but smell like garlic and chives.
We have been eating them raw in salads- it’s like adding a mild garlic chive but I wanted to add them to cooking too. I decided to make a very quick Cheesy Pasta Dish perfect for when you want to whip up tea quickly and enjoy the rest of the sunny evening. It’s more of a throwing of ingredients together than a recipe but a good place to start cooking with wild Three Cornered Garlic.
Easy Cheesy Three Cornered Wild Garlic Pasta (serves 4)
Ingredients
400g dried pasta (I used Fusilli)
200g Cream Cheese (I used Violife Creamy to make this dish Vegan friendly)
1 stock cube (I used Kallo low salt vegan stock cube)
a bunch of Three Cornered Garlic
Grated Cheese to serve (I used Violife Original)
Method
1. Boil pasta according to instructions.
2. While the pasta is boiling, wash the Wild Garlic.
3. Chop and boil the wild garlic with the stock cube. Once mixed well, blend this mixture together until smooth.
4. Gently melt the soft cheese in a saucepan, keep stirring. Pour in the garlic and stock mixture and stir well.
5. Drain pasta. Either pour pasta into sauce and stir well (my preferred way) or serve pasta then pour the sauce over (my kids prefer it this way).
6. If desired sprinkle grated cheese over this pasta dish.
7. Serve with Garlic Bread (many store Garlic Breads are accidentally vegan or you can make your own) and salad.
Enjoy! It’s a really quick, super easy dish to make and as you see can be dairy free too.
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Have you foraged any Wild Three Cornered Garlic recently? What are your favourite wild garlic recipes?
