The bitter-sweet taste of young garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) blends subtly with the herby tastes & textures of cow parsley, to make a fine substantial sauce suitable for pasta or grains. The kind of food I need to eat when I return home if I’ve been wandering on the road for a week or so.
Ingredients
- 50g garlic mustard tips (shredded & chopped )
- 400g vine-ripened cherry tomatoes (chopped)
- 1 red chilli (chopped)
- 50g cow parsley shoots & buds
- 1 banana (chopped)
- 1 tbs honey
- 2tbs tomato purée
- 30g parmesan cheese
- 3tbs oil/butter
Suggested Instructions
- Heat oil and add the chilli and garlic mustard tips, and cook on medium for 3 minutes.
- Add the cherry tomatoes, banana, tomato purée & honey. Mix ingredients and simmer on low for 30 minutes.
- Add chopped cow parsley, parmesan cheese, then put a lid on the saucepan, remove it from the heat and leave for 20 minutes.
- Cook some spagetti, and when done serve with the garlic mustard sauce.
Serves: 2
On a walk, 5 May 2022, I ate around 3 or 4 garlic mustard leaves on an empty stomach (before eating my picnic sandwiches) and was surprised soon afterward to get ‘liver pain’, this is a pain under my right ribs and spreading to under my right shoulder blade. I had it before after eating Quorn, so I knew what it was. I quickly ate my sandwiches and the pain eased. Also drank water as I continued on my walk. After the walk and the next 2 days, I felt unusually exhausted and ached all over. For 2 days I also had Diarrhea (a yellow colour, same colour after eating Quorn). I am feeling better this morning.
But it shows you cannot be complacent about what you find good to eat . . . where it grows must be of more significance than I would have thought.
Other years I have nibbled garlic mustard leaves and flowers I found along my walks, enjoying the peppery taste, without any problems afterwards. I don’t know if it was to do with where they were growing, but it would seem not all plants of the same type are good to eat.
It might possibly have been a victim of dog-peeing or bird-pooing on the leaves, or other critters?