Foraging Garlic Mustard

Argh! We just finished dinner of slow cooked pork and a garlic mustard pesto with fusilli and extra parmesan cheese on top. The pesto had a wild taste that was so fresh and flavorful that we vowed we can never go back to buying bottled pesto again. Thanks to Roger Ma’s (Restaurant Daniel alumni) pesto tips on which we adapted this recipe:

10-12 cups (lightly packed) garlic mustard leaves and tips

1/4 cup pine nuts

1 clove garlic

1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar

2 squeezes of lemon juice

Chop  up the garlic mustard leaves. Set aside.

Grind the garlic and pine nuts and add the parmesan cheese. Add the garlic mustard leaves and blend, adding in the olive oil until smooth. Mix in the salt, sugar and lemon juice.

Mix with pasta and serve with extra parmesan cheese and pepper.

You dont need to walk to far to find garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) This invasive weed from Eurasia has remarkable survival tactics: one plant can produce thousands of seeds and the rhizomes exude chemicals that inhibit tree growth on the edges of forests where they are easily spotted. Pick all you can when the lighter green growth springs up from the older basal ground leaves. These are more tender and not bitter. The flowers are delicately pretty too.