{Sauce on the Side}

Steak & stir-fried wild garlic roots / and fermented wild garlic stems

More wild garlic, yes. A little goes a long way, for sure, but little and often is no bad thing, and here’s something I bet you’ve not done with wild garlic before.

I was in the woods with Thom, filling a bag for chef Rich at the 10 Cases. Cheaper than Natoora, in that it’s free. The soil was very loose. Friable, I believe is the word. The garlic came up, roots and all, the roots like very young leeks, pungent and milky. I stashed them away for later. Stir-fried with ginger, lemongrass, shallot and soy sauce they were a miracle with a steak, a bowl of rice and a little chopped fermented wild garlic stem. A less off-the-cuff dinner might have added a flurry of herbs and a fistful of roasted peanuts.

But this is not, for better or probably worse, Jamie Oliver dot com, and these recipes are not developed to within an inch of perfection. They’re just what I cooked.

I really loved this dinner. Next time I will do the above - coriander, mint, dill, maybe some slightly sore-thumbish-in-this-context marjoram.

The fermented wild garlic stems are remarkable in their own way, pleasingly kimchi-ish and sour after only a week. As ever, you could amp up the aromatics and seasonings, though I was keen to see how they’d come out on their own. Recommend either way.