It’s the end of January and I head out to forage, unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, I don’t need to step any further than my garden.
Not because I have some lush cultivated veggies to harvest, but because my garden is putting forth a ubiquitous wild edible plant known as Three Cornered Leek (Allium triquetrum), or as some wild flower ID books call it Three Cornered Garlic.
An migrant plant to these shores and yet another that get’s attacked for daring to chance its luck on Blighty!
I’ve used the common names interchangeably for years, but now decide to call it by what I think it tastes like, which is similar to mini leeks. In the Mediterranean this particular species is called wild leeks, though not to be confused with the real wild leek Allium ampeloprasum, which as Alan Davidson’s Oxford Companion to Food states is ancestor of Allium porum, the cultivated leek of Europe and national emblem of Wales.
Having just returned from holiday, I opened the cupboard to find, well to be honest not a lot. I tend not to hoard food stuffs, instead eating what appears on my land base and purchasing shop products as and when required to accompany my wild foraged finds.
Today I have some tahini left over, and a single tin of chickpeas, plus some lemons I bought a day ago as I felt I needed a vitamin C boost, and some scruffy looking garlic that I eat literally by the bulb-full. Yup single cloves are for wimps!
So seeing the garden being taken over by aforementioned plant, I decided to whip up this quick Three Cornered Leek Hummus recipe.
Under Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1985 and amendments) it is an offence to deliberately or accidentally introduce this plant into the wild. Make certain when harvesting, to use suitable containers that do not allow any part of the plant to accidentally fall out when transporting back home. And dispose of any unused material safely (not your own compost bin, or green bin, instead use black bin). – Mark Duffell from Arvensis Ecology
Ingredients
- 400g tin of chickpeas
- 200g three cornered leek (chopped)
- 6 tbsp of tahini (I use Al Nakhil from Lebanon as it doesn’t have the bitterness most Greek/Cypress tahini brands do)
- 3 tbsp of lemon juice
- 6 tbsp water
- 3 garlic cloves (chopped)
- 2 pinches of salt
Suggested Instructions
- Put chickpeas in blender, and pulse for a few seconds.
- Next add all the other ingredients and blend until of the consistency you desire. Some folk like it chunky, others smooth, the choice is yours.
Makes: 450g