A Weed by Any Other Name.
Or learning to cook with unique and wild plants.
On our organic farm, we were always looking for new plants and tastes. Seed catalogs are addictive; every time we’d see a vegetable we weren’t familiar with, we just had to try it.
There are vegetables most of us have never heard of — oca, molokhia, bur cucumbers, the list is long. One year we grew more than 75 various vegetables and varieties. Some thrived in Central Texas, and others failed. I enjoyed eating most of them. I’m a big green veggie fan. Salads, sauteed, ‘smoothied’; there’s just something about the green taste I love.
Mache or Corn Salad(Valerianella locusta)
Image by: Martin Malec
This lovely little plant became one of my favorites. In Europe, it’s known as mache; in the United States, you will more likely hear it called Corn Salad. Some people say it has a sweet corn flavor, others, like me, taste a delicate hazelnut essence. I love it as a salad with a light vinaigrette.
Rich in Vitamin C, it’s a perfect cool-season green.
This highly nutritious foraged wild plant was sought after for its soft, supple texture and nutty flavor and eventually brought into cultivation. While it looks tender, it is very cold hardy, making it the perfect cool-season green and ideal for winter market farmers. It is a culinary specialty crop of the Nantes region of France.
Corn salad grows wild in parts of northern Africa, western Asia, and Europe and has even become a common weed. In North America, it’s escaped cultivation, and you may be fortunate and find it growing on both the east and west coasts.
It may be known as mache, corn salad, lamb’s lettuce, fetticus, or doucette, depending on where you are. By any name, it’s well worth growing as you are not likely to find it any nearby markets.
Purslane (Portulaca oleracea)
Image by: anro0002
Yep. It looks like a common weed, doesn’t it?
Purslane is a low, crawling plant that produces tender stems and juicy leaves. And it can grow almost anywhere, including cracks in the sidewalk. Naively, in our first year of farming, I purchased seeds for it. After that, I just let it grow in the rows with the crops and ‘harvested’ before the market, which always made me chuckle. Selling weeds…what could be better?
We sold a ton of it at the Farmers Market, explaining to customers that it’s a superfood powerhouse of plant nutrition and the richest source of omega-three fatty acids in the plant world.
It is native to Mexico and the southwest United States, and it does indeed grow like a weed here in Central Texas. It’s been appreciated for its flavor and nutrition for centuries by Native American people.
It’s best when harvested while young and before it blooms. Pull the small tangy leaves off and add them to a salad and chop the stems to saute with eggs or chile. They add a slightly lemon tang to a smoothie, too.
If you forage for purslane or verdolaga, as it’s known in Mexico, do not gather too close too roads where it may be polluted from the exhaust.
Be bold, and add some new greens to your cooking.
Here’s a recipe to try from the book, Truly Texas Mexican: A Native Culinary History in Recipes. By Adán Medrano
RECIPE FOR VERDOLAGA, PURSLANE
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 lb Verdolaga, washed and trimmed
1/4 Onion, peeled, sliced thinly, (makes 1/3 cup)
1 Garlic clove, minced
6 cups water
1 Roma Tomato, cut into large cubes
1 Green Chile Serrano, cut into thin slices
1 Tbl Canola Oil
1/4 tsp Salt or to taste
Generous grinding of Black Pepper
Method1. Wash the verdolaga thoroughly and trim away any brown leaves and knotty stems. Place in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Cook for 20–25 minutes until the stems are completely soft. After they are cooked, use a slotted spoon to remove the greens and place them in a strainer to drain. Set the water aside. It is a delicious broth and also makes a great stock.
2. In a skillet, heat the oil, then add the onion, garlic, tomato, and chile. Cook for about 3 minutes until the onion becomes translucent.
3. Place the verdolaga on a cutting board and cut it into 2″ lengths.
4. Add the verdolaga to the skillet and cook for a minute. Add 1 1/2 cups of the verdolaga broth, bring to a boil and cook for another 5 minutes. Taste and correct the salt. Add a generous grinding of black pepper.
Serve hot.
NOTE: Sometimes, you’ll want to serve it as a soup, so add all of the broth in step #4.
¡Buen Provecho!
Verdolaga Recipe Image by: Adan Medrano