Spring treat for the taste buds

It’s wild garlic season at last and the leaves that herald the arrival of spring are starting to sprout again. As it’s such a short season,make sure that you take every opportunity you can between now and the end of April to prepare delicious dishes with this aromatic wild herb. Whether you use it in soup, as it is in a sandwich or as pesto, wild garlic will add a subtle hint of garlic to any of your dishes.

Our Social Media Manager Maria created her own recipe for a hearty wild garlic risotto and has now shared it with us.

“To add subtle seasoning to this Italian classic, I blended the wild garlic into a paste with parmesan and pine nuts. I like to mix wild garlic with other herbs to reduce the punch of its strong aroma a little. The result is then a refined dish with a gentle spiciness.”

The wild garlic not only gives this rice dish a great flavour, its green colour also adds a wonderful spring feel to the plate. Combine that with caramelised roasted tomatoes and you get delicious vegetarian soul food – perfect for the weekend after a long springtime walk. PS: We have listed alternative ingredients for vegans.

Ingredients:
(serves 4 people)

For the risotto:
1 onion
1 l vegetable stock
300 g risotto rice
200 ml white wine
25 g wild garlic
15 g basil
50 g parsley
50 ml olive oil
75 g parmesan (vegan alternative: yeast flakes)
pine nuts
salt, pepper, butter (alternative: plant-based oil) for sautéing

For the roasted tomatoes:
200 g cherry or cocktail vine tomatoes
2 garlic cloves
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp honey (alternative: maple syrup)
salt

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (top and bottom heat). Without using any fat, lightly toast the pine nuts in a pan. Put a few to one side to use for decoration. Coarsely grate the parmesan, and also keep a few shavings of this for the garnish. Blend the wild garlic, basil, parsley, parmesan, pine nuts and olive oil together to form a coarse pesto.

2. Peel and finely chop the onion, wash the rice. Heat the vegetable stock in a saucepan and keep it warm. Heat a little butter in a non-stick pan, sauté the onions, add the rice and sauté briefly. Deglaze with approx. 50 ml white wine and reduce over a low heat.

3. Once reduced, add one to two ladles of hot stock. As soon as the liquid has evaporated again, repeat this process and add the remaining wine and stock alternately until the rice is “al dente”. This will take approx. 20 minutes.

4. In the meantime (but don’t forget the risotto – it needs to be stirred constantly so that it doesn’t burn!), wash the tomatoes and place on a baking tray lined with baking parchment. Halve the garlic cloves and add to the baking tray. Salt the tomatoes and drizzle with olive oil. Roast in the oven at 200°C for 10 minutes. Pour the honey over the tomatoes and allow to caramelise for another 3 to 5 minutes.

5. Once the risotto is cooked, fold in the wild garlic pesto and season to taste. Serve on 4 plates, place 3 tomatoes on each portion of risotto and sprinkle with parmesan and pine nuts.

We hope you have fun following our recipe and that you enjoy the results!