Sarah Watson

Wild harvests

Forager Sarah Watson runs Wild Feast foraging and cookery courses in the Hastings area and will be contributing to HOT from time to time to recommend leaves, flowers and fruits that are good to eat – as well as suggesting ways to cook them.

Now’s the time to start foraging for edible summer flowers. Not all flowers are sweetly fragrant, some are surprisingly savoury or pungent. As well as looking wonderful on the plate, flowers can contain vitamins and antioxidants.

Here are three common edible ones to look out for this month:

Elder tree

Elder (Sambucus nigra) is one of my favourites – fragrant, creamy-white, saucer-shaped blooms with a superb, rich, floral flavour – but the elderflower season doesn’t last for long! Each flower is made up of tiny florets with five petals and five pale-yellow anthers. The leaves of this small tree are formed of two or three pairs of (rather unpleasant-smelling) opposite leaflets with serrated edges.

Take care not to take too many flowers from one spot so the tree can fruit later, providing food for wildlife as well as foraging humans.

Elderflowers and berries have been used in cooking for centuries, although the stalks and leaves contain toxic cyano-compounds so flowers should be stripped away (this can be done with a fork) from as much of the green stalk as possible.

It’s easy to make your own elderflower cordial.  You can get citric acid from chemists – it acts as a preservative as well as sharpening the flavour. The cordial only lasts a few weeks in the fridge, so once it has cooled I funnel it into little sterilised plastic bottles, and freeze. (Scroll down for recipe!)

Elderflower bowl

Elderflower cordial recipe:

Pick your elderflowers on a dry day (the pollen adds to the flavour), and leave some flowers to form fruit for wildlife and for elderberry recipes. Avoid any flowers turning brown, and pick those with the nicest scent. The cordial can be diluted as a drink, used in cocktails, as a drizzle, or as an ingredient for desserts, sorbets and ice lollies. The citric acid is optional if you’re using your cordial straight away – it extends the life of the syrup by helping to stop fermentation, and also adds tartness to the flavour. You can get it from some chemists, home brew shops or online (choose a reputable company).

Makes between 1.5 and 2 litres of cordial.

Ingredients:

• 20-30 elderflowers
• 1.5 litres water
• 1 kg sugar
• 2 lemons
• 1 lime or 1 orange (or another lemon if you prefer)
• 2 heaped teaspoons food grade citric acid (optional)

Method:

If your citrus fruits are waxed, wash them in hot water and washing-up liquid, scrub with a brush or the scouring side of a washing-up sponge, rinse well and dry. Zest the citrus fruits and keep them aside.

Elderflower fritters are a lacy, crispy treat: dip elderflowers in a light batter, briefly deep-fry, then sprinkle with icing sugar or elderflower cordial and serve with summer fruits or gooseberry compote. Elderflower can also be used to flavour sorbet, ice lollies, ice cream, custard, panna cotta, cakes and liqueurs. Nick Hales of St Clements restaurant suggests pickling Hastings herring fillets in elderflower vinegar – I was sceptical, I tried it, it works.

Wild-rose Rosa rugosa

The flowers of the Japanese rose (Rosa rugosa) are good for using as flavouring as they’re large and highly scented. You only need the petals so leave the rest of the flower to give it a chance to form hips for foraging later. Try making rose petal jam or syrup, which can be used to flavour ice cream, cakes, pastries, desserts, or as a drinks mixer. Rose petal vodka is a cocktail ingredient you won’t find in the shops. Infuse around the same quantity of petals to vodka, say 500ml of petals to 500ml vodka, for 24 hours, with a couple of teaspoons of sugar per 500ml of vodka. Then strain, adding more sugar to taste if you like.

“Photo from Wikipedia (User ∑64)”

Common vetch (Vicia sativa) tips have a grassy pea-like flavour, not surprising as they’re in the pea family. You might find it scrambling through hedge banks and grassy areas. Each group of paired leaflets ends in tendrils, and its pairs of magenta flowers are found in the leaf axils between the stem and the leaflets. The young tips of common vetch shoots as well as the flowers, are a pretty addition to a summer salad. Be aware that the seeds contain toxins and shouldn’t be eaten unless cooked in a certain way.

NB  Make sure you’ve properly identified plants before you eat them.        If you’re in any doubt then leave them, as there are several common and highly poisonous plants in the UK. If you’re not sure exactly what to look for, check a good plant identification book or try going on a foraging course.

Sarah Watson and Wild Feast: “I love using wild plants as ingredients in food and drink. I grew up in the village of Whatlington near Battle, identifying wild plants with help from my botanist dad. I took a biology degree which included botany, ecology and conservation, and with my passion for cooking using local and seasonal ingredients, the addition of wild ingredients seemed a natural step. Having taught at a field study centre in Norfolk, co-founded the Hastings Seafood & Wine Festival and helped small business start-ups, Wild Feast incubated in the back of my mind for quite a few years before I finally took the plunge.”

Also in: Food & Drink