I made a small meal from weeds and roots.
This little meal was constituted almost entirely of foraged plants! I call it the French fries and burger patties of the great outdoors. Here’s how I did it.
To start, I had to dig at the base of a certain type of grass.
Nutsedge is a grass that grows tubers. Though they’re not exactly palatable raw, boiling oil and salt makes them taste just like fried potatoes.
I used these little round French fries as a side for my main dish, which was the greens burgers.
To start those, I gathered a lot of greens and blanched them.
I used all the greens I could find (curly dock, wild lettuce, and goldenrod). What looked like a lot of raw leaves turned out to be very little when it was blanched so I had to substitute in some curly dock seed that I had in my closet.
When the first patty looked cooked, I tasted it. I was very surprised to discover that the texture and flavor were amazing! I quickly fried the rest of the batter.
I was able to convince almost all of my siblings to try these and what I had cooked was soon very popular. In fact, I would say that the green burgers were a hit!
As a forager, it was encouraging to be able to gather all of these foods and cook them into a tasty snack. This inspired me to learn more about the plants around me.
These were the ingredients I used for the burgers:
- One cup of blanched greens.
- One cup of dock seed
- An egg.
- 1/4 cup of flour
- Salt.
- Oil for frying.
The ingredients used in the nutsedge were:
- Harvested tubers.
- Salt.
- Oil.
Indy.
