Bear’s garlic, or wild garlic, is one of the first spring herbs we can harvest. It grows in light forest glades but you can also cultivate it in a shady part of your garden. Apart from its benefits for our health, what I like most about bear’s garlic is that IT smells quite like real garlic but YOU won’t after eating it 😊. In this recipe, I’ve used bear’s garlic in a light yeast dough to make a savoury and eye-catching bear’s garlic knot.
You can harvest the bear’s garlic in the woods if you know a place where it grows wildly but please: make absolutely sure you know your plants! Bear’s garlic can be confused with lily of the valley which is toxic! If you’re not sure, buy it or try to grow it in your garden.
Bear’s garlic knot
Ingredients
Makes one large knot or braid
700 g four (I like spelt but you can use wheat)
20 g fresh yeast or 7 g dried yeast
1 tsp sugar
250 ml lukewarm water
5 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp milk
Instructions:
1. If you use fresh yeast, dissolve it in a bite of lukewarm milk, add some sugar and stir until becomes a uniform mass. Let it rest for 20 minutes until the liquid has visibly risen.
2. Wash the bear’s garlic, dry it and chop it roughly.
3. For the yeast dough, put the flour and salt into a bowl. If you use dried yeast, add it, too. Add the water and 2 tbsp oil (and yeast water in case of fresh yeast) and knead these ingredients into a smooth dough. Put the dough into a bowl and let it rest for about one hour (it should double its volume).
4. Thoroughly knead the dough on a floured surface and divide it into four parts. Roll each part to a string and plait a knot. First, lay the strings crosswise (see drawing) and then put the lower string across the string next to it. In the following pictures, you’ll see how to do it:
In the end, it’ll look like that:
Ready for baking
5. Cover a tray with baking parchment, put the bear’s garlic knot onto the tray and let it rest and rise for 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Mix the milk and remaining olive oil, brush the knot with it and let it bake in the oven for 45 minutes.
Enjoy your bear’s garlic knot with salted butter and chopped bear’s garlic on top.
If you liked this bread, you may also want to try this recipe for a braided bear’s garlic brioche braid.
Every year I yearn for the first asparagus ’cause it’s the unmistakable sign that we are heading out of late spring and right into early summer! I love all types of asparagus, white, green and violet but if I had to choose (which thankfully I don’t), I’d say that I love green asparagus a teeny tiny bit more. In my eyes (or should I say: taste buds?), it’s got more of a taste, bringing herbal, nutty and spinach flavours to the table. And it’s so versatile! Sauté green asparagus and mix it with orange slices and Parmigiano to get a delicious salad. Or cook it in white wine sauce and add it to your pasta, sprinkle the whole dish with some freshly grated nutmeg and you’ll stun your friends and family. For this recipe, I’ve chosen to combine a classic tarte flambée with green asparagus. For taste – and colour – I added red onions and walnuts. Apart from the yeast dough which needs to be prepared about an hour before baking, this is a speedy recipe.
Tarte flambée with green asparagus and walnuts
Ingredients for 4 servings
Yeast dough
250 g all-purpose flour
7 g dry yeast or 15 g fresh yeast
Salt
125 ml warm water
Topping
400 g green asparagus
3 red onions
100 g walnuts (shelled)
200 g sour cream
200 g cream cheese
salt, pepper
walnut oil
Instructions:
If you use fresh yeast, crumble it into the warm water and stir it until the yeast has dissolved. Weigh the flour, add a teaspoon of salt and pour the yeast water into it. Knead into a smooth dough. If you use dry yeast, weigh the flour and measure the water, add the yeast and a teaspoon of salt to the flour, pour the water in and knead into a smooth dough. Either way, let the dough rest in a warm place for about 30 minutes.
In the meantime, cut off the ends of the asparagus spears and peel them. As we use green asparagus, only the lower half of the spears must be peeled. Cut the spears into thin slices. Peel the onions and cut into thin slices. Chop the walnuts.
In a bowl, mix the sour cream and cream cheese, add salt and pepper to your taste and stir in 2/3 of the walnuts.
Preheat the oven to 240°C. Divide the dough into four portions and on a floured surface roll them out very thinly. Line a baking tray with parchment and place the rolled-out dough onto it. Evenly spread the cheese-nut mixture onto the dough, add the asparagus and onion slices and sprinkle the rest of the walnuts on top.
Bake the tartes for 12 – 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to your taste and drizzle with walnut oil before serving.
Spring is finally here and we all long for the first freshly harvested lettuce! Also, the first wild herbs can be foraged and why not add the young leaves of nettle, ribwort plantain and dandelion to your salad bowl to boost your energy. Mix in slices of radishes and mushrooms and poach your salad bowl with poached eggs and flower petals: you’ll have a health-boosting vegetarian meal and a beautiful dish to impress your guests with!
wildflowers (dandelion, cuckoo flower, red clover, violet, daisy etc.)
4 eggs
6 tbsp apple vinegar
4 tbsp walnut or hazelnut oil
salt (normal or orange herb salt), pepper
Instructions:
Wash the lettuce and wild herbs thoroughly and shake them to dry
Wash the radishes and cut off the leaves and the roots. Wipe the mushrooms with a moist kitchen cloth.
Mix the apple vinegar and nut oil with salt and pepper.
Bring a large pot with water and two tablespoons of vinegar to the boil. Crack the egg open into a glass. When the water is boiling, stir it until a vortex forms. Carefully insert the egg into the vortex and cook for about 4 minutes.
In the meantime, arrange the lettuce, herbs, radishes and mushrooms on four plates and pour the dressing over the salad.
When the eggs are cooked, take them out with a skimmer and put them onto the salad. Sprinkle with wildflowers and flower petals and serve.
When I was a child, my mum made a braided yeast bun almost every weekend. When on Saturday evening the smell of freshly baked yeast dough wafted through the house, we knew that we were in for a treat. Unfortunately, waiting wasn’t a strength of any of us and more often than not, somebody (usually my dad) stole a piece of the bun before it had even cooled off!
When I was old enough to bake myself, Mum gave me her recipe which I still think is the best. There are many variations to braided yeast buns: you can make them with raisins, nuts or different flavours, add fillings and form them not only like a braid but in many different shapes.
The classic braided yeast bun, however, is my favourite and I love making it for my family.
Braided yeast bun
Ingredients
750 g all-purpose flour (I usually use spelt, but wheat is also ok) 1 tbsp sugar 1 tbsp vanilla sugar 1 pinch of salt 1/4 l lukewarm milk 7 g dried yeast or 40 g fresh yeast 100 g soft butter 3 eggs, medium size 1/2 tbsp grated lemon or orange zest 100 g raisins OR 100 g almond slivers (both optional)
Instructions
If you use fresh yeast, activate it by crumbling it into a bowl, adding the sugar and a bit of the lukewarm milk. Stir until it’s dissolved and let it rest for 10 – 15 minutes until you can see air bubbles and the liquid starts to expand.
Sieve the flour into a bowl and mix it with sugar and salt. If you use the dry yeast, add it to the dry ingredients, otherwise, add the activated fresh yeast. Dissolve the butter in the (remaining) milk, add the liquid and 2 eggs to the flour and mix it well.
Knead the dough on a floured surface for 5 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. My mom always said: “It has to lay in the bowl like a freshly bathed baby!”
Put the dough into a bowl, cover it with a cloth and let it rest for one hour until it has risen well. Divide the dough into two pieces, the smaller one about one-third of the whole. Divide each dough piece into three parts, roll them into “cords” and make a large and a smaller braid.
Preheat the oven to 200 °C /fan oven 180 °C. Cover a baking tray with baking parchment and set the larger braid onto the tray. Put the smaller one on top, cover the bun with a cloth and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Brush the whole braid with the beaten egg. You can now sprinkle it with sugar crystals or almond slivers or leave it like that.
I love lasagna! Not only the classic one (which is adorable!) but lasagna in every variety. It’s such a great dish to experiment with different vegetables, herbs, spices, sauces and flavours. Take the combination of spinach and lemon for example: they are a dream couple of their own but add a great bechamel sauce, cheese and herbs and layer all that with lasagna sheets. The result is a creamy and savoury main course with well-balanced tartness. You’ll love it as much as I do! Here’s the recipe of a tasty spinach lemon lasagna:
Spinach lemon lasagna
Admittedly, preparation time is a bit longer as you’ll have to blanch the spinach and mix it with different ingredients to make one part of the filling. Additionally, you’ll need a classic bechamel sauce which also needs some time to make. However, the wonderful taste of this spinach lemon lasagna rewards you for all the effort.
Ingredients
lasagna sheets 1/2 bunch of basil 1 quarter slice fermented lemon 4 tbsp 2 spring onions 300 g fresh spinach 400 g ricotta salt pepper 30 g butter 30 g flour freshly grated nutmeg 300 ml vegetable broth 300 ml milk 200 g grated cheese (parmigiano, gouda or similar)
Instructions
For the spinach-ricotta filling
1. Bring a pot of water to the boil. In the meantime, wash the spinach and blanch it for one minute in the boiling water. Drain in a sieve and rinse with cold water. Wash the spring onions and slice them.
2. Roughly chop the basil and the lemon and puree it in a food processor together with 3 tbsp olive oil.
3. In a bowl, mix the spinach and onions with ricotta and the basil-lemon puree. Add salt and pepper to taste but be careful with the salt as the lemons are salty already.
For the bechamel sauce
4. Melt the butter and slowly bend in the flour. Slowly add the vegetable broth while constantly stirring. Make sure that no lumps form! Add the vegetable broth and let it come back to the boil briefly. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste, add half of the grated cheese and stir until it’s melted.
Assemble the lasagna
5. Preheat the oven to 180 °C (fan oven: 160 °C). Grease an oven dish and layer lasagna sheets, spinach-ricotta mix and bechamel sauce in that order until the mix and the sauce are used up. The last layer is sauce. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the dish and bake it in the oven for 30 – 40 minutes.
