How to cook with wild garlic

In British cooking we have traditionally had a complicated relationship with garlic. Let the french use it to their hearts’ content: fine in a Toulouse but no thank you in a Cumberland. Suggestive of this wariness is wild garlic’s many names – ‘devil's garlic’, ‘gypsy's onions’ and ‘stinking Jenny’ amongst others.

But in recent years British cooks have taken to wild garlic with unabashed relish (and indeed it makes rather a good one, as seen here). Food always tastes better having foraged or hunted for it yourself and so it is with wild garlic. The leaves appear in March and you will find them throughout spring but they are best picked early in the season. The joys of foraging can though sometimes be dampened by shrill warnings of the dangers at every turn amongst the flora. Don’t fret: yes you may mistake the similarly leaved – and poisonous – Lily of the Valley for wild garlic as you roam amongst the deciduous woodland where it is found in most abundance. But crush a little in your hand and the pungent garlic scent will dispel any doubts as to what you have found.

As Lucy Carr-Ellison and Jemima Jones (of Belgravia’s Wild by Tart) explain, 'The first shoots of wild garlic emerge from the wetter areas of the woodland floor in the early spring sunshine, before the trees above have had a chance to shade out everything that grows beneath… The delicate newer leaves are the ones to pick.' You can also use the buds, which are excellent when pickled as Katherine Holbrook shows. There are other more unusual uses too: the leaves can be dried and then turned into a garlic salt.

With a pungent smell and a sweet, grassy taste – somewhere between normal clove garlic and oniony chives – wild garlic does not disappoint. The leaves lend themselves well to wilting into Chinese stir fries, to create a twist on an aioli, in a salsa verde or in all manner of Italian dishes: risotto, ribollita, minestrone or to make an alternative pesto. Ben Tish (of the Cubitt House Group) uses it atop flatbreads to create garlic bread. It makes a lovely lunch when combined with potato and choizo in Gill Meller’s tortilla. You can do an interesting twist on creamed spinach, to accompany a juicy steak. You can use it to create a garlic butter to give a fine makeover to chicken kiev. Ed Smith uses it in a cooling raita and has plenty of other ideas besides. And to enjoy it in is adulterated glory turn it into a simple soup – possibly combining with nettles, borage, wild sorrel, Alexanders or just plain old spinach.

Of course a large haul from foraging also calls for preserving: Bettina Campolucci Bordi (founder of Bettina’s Kitchen) says “We collect our wild garlic from Hampstead Heath. I … blend it with oil and freeze it in ice cubes trays. That way if I need a hit of flavour for a soup or stew, these are ready for me at any given time.” Foraging also means you have a chance of finding it with its beautiful white flowers – which you will see from April through to June – that provide both flavour and decoration.

Spring is around the corner. The daffodils will soon be in bloom. But do not neglect to enjoy the wild garlic lurking nearby the golden host. For you will feel all the joy of Wordsworth if you do. Indeed, 'A poet could not but be gay, / In such a jocund company.'