Cooking Wild Greens - A Delicious Tradition
This time of year in Umbria, you will see people out in the fields harvesting wild greens. Italians love to forage for these foods which is a practice that goes back to times when food was hard to come by. The locals here harvest mushrooms and wild asparagus, truffles and other foods when they are in season.
Of course, the TandemSpirits love wild greens and we eat them this time of year.
What are wild greens composed of?
Wild greens are a wide variety of what we Americans would normally call “weeds” like dandelions, wild anise, fennel and other plants. From a culinary point of view, they are quite bitter in taste. From a nutritional perspective, there’s a lot of literature that suggests eating greens is quite good for you.
Last week, my greengrocer Mario, had huge bags of wild greens in his shop. I had him weigh out 1.5 kilos (3.3 lbs) which would be enough for a few meals. The picture shows the pile of greens I brought home. Oh, I also picked up a yellow Romagna head of cauliflower (yummy!!!).
The next step is to cut off all the roots!
Then you rinse them in water. Generally, greens are not very dirty. I can usually get them clean after about 4 rinses.
Cooking the greens
Then comes the fun part! Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to the boil, add the greens and boil them for about 10 minutes.
After boiling the greens for 10 minutes, pour them into a colander to drain. Stop the cooking process by rinsing them with cold water. Then, squeeze the water out of them and form them into balls which can be stored in the refrigerator for several days.
Cooking wild greens
Cooking the greens couldn’t be easier. Heat some olive oil in a pan, add the cooked greens, salt them and saute until they’re heated through. That’s it!! Of course, you can add red pepper flakes, garlic or shallots, but the TandemSpirits like them prepared simply. They are flavorful and really don’t need any help!!!
The night I prepared the greens, we enjoyed them with mashed potatoes and chicken!
