Wild garlic soup is cheap, healthy, simple to make and delicious. The wild garlic is now carpeting many of the woods around the farm shop – and is a great way to get the year’s foraging under way. It’s particularly early this year due to our mild winter – despite the fact that it feels cold and damp. The morning frosts lead me to suggest a warming wild garlic soup as opposed to pesto or salad which you can turn to when the weather improves.
Another old fashioned and incredibly simple recipe is to add a couple of leaves of wild garlic to your cheese sandwich – it would work brilliantly with Black Bomber cheddar. It would make for a perfect accompaniement to the wild garlic soup.
For the Wild Garlic Soup you need the following ingredients for 4 servings:
- 25g butter
- 2 (roughly 275g) medium potatoes, cut into 1cm cubes
- 1 (about 150g) medium onion, chopped
- 1 litre vegetable stock
- 4 big handfuls (about 200g) of wild garlic leaves, chopped
- 100ml double cream
Place the butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat until it begins to bubble, then add your chopped potato and onion and toss them in the butter. Season, then reduce the heat, cover and cook until the vegetables are soft (about 10 minutes).
Then add the stock and bring to the boil, before adding the wild garlic and cook for a further 2 minutes. Immediately zap with a hand blender into a consistent liquid, return to the pan, stir in the cream and season again to taste. For show, add a couple of wild garlic flowers to each bowl.