The garlic is up. Not just in my vegetable patch, next to the self-sown spinach, but in the woods and hedges, too. "Widespread" is how the foraging books put it. The long leaves, wide and tapering to a point, are difficult to miss, the unmistakable smell wafting up from either side of the path. If you pick thoughtfully, leaving plenty in situ, there will be plenty for next year.
My wild garlic leaves tend to come from kind friends, but it is possible to find them in tied bunches at farmers' markets (usually on the garlic stalls) and it is perfectly possible to grow the leaves in the garden or allotment. I have tried to get a prolific patch going, as I have with sorrel, for some time. But some things seem to resent being told where to grow, and I find wild garlic one of them.
Spring garlic leaves and bulbs have a meekness in comparison to the chopped mature cloves, gentler and often acceptable to those for whom the older stuff is too strong. They have a politeness to them and won't overpower anything they are cooked with. That said, I always seal my packet of leaves tightly in the fridge, as even the smallest bundle will send unwanted Gallic notes through your milk and yogurt.
These slim, matt green leaves have turned out to be most successful for wrapping lamb prior to roasting, and this week I mashed them, green and sweet, into a verdant butter for basting a long, slender fillet of lamb. We ate the rose-pink, allium-scented meat it in thick slices with barely a trickle of the roasting juices on each plate.
I mentioned last year that you can cook wild garlic – ramsons – as a vegetable. My suggestion was to cook the leaves and young white stems in a pot with a lid, using a couple of spoonfuls of water and some butter. A tight-fitting lid will enable the leaves to steam rather than fry, which is what such infant shoots need. I would now add a shot of lemon juice to the pan, too.
The nettles that invade ditch and flowerbeds with equal abandon are free and relatively plentiful, but only the first few centimetres of the growing tips are interesting in the kitchen. Those small, soft-textured leaves can be picked and stuffed into plastic bags and will keep for a week in the fridge. There is a spinach-like quality to the top few leaves, and they can be used in much the same way, though not for salad.
Don't believe all that stuff about the sting disappearing after the leaves have been picked – they can still pack a nasty punch. Take your thickest gloves. (I have the telltale itchy pink rash up my arms as I type.) The sting only dissipates when the fine hairs on the leaves and stems meet the heat.
Nettle soup, delicious as it is, can seem a bit of a cop-out. I tuck my hedgerow and garden pickings into a contemporary version of Welsh rarebit, the lightly cooked leaves hiding under a layer of crème fraîche and grated cheese. I replace the missing sting with mustard. The leaves work in a tart, too, with a wibbly custard of egg yolks and cream baked in pastry, and I have also admired them when they are made into an omelette. There is something deeply comforting about making a meal from eggs and nettles.
It is not just the frugality of cooking with wild leaves that appeals: the pleasure is more the idea of exploiting something that is otherwise considered of little use. (They make excellent compost, too.) And every time I sting myself picking them, which I somehow manage even with gardening gloves on, I placate myself with the knowledge that the offending sprigs will soon be in the pot with onions, stock and seasoning. Grated nutmeg goes well with anything nettle based. I have learnt to go easy on the pepper.
The cracks between the flagstones outside the kitchen doors are a constant source of dandelions. I treat the gaps as a source of free salad. When the leaves are no bigger than my middle finger they are sweet enough to use in a salad. They are suited to being tossed with hot bacon. Unlike rocket and some of the more fragile lettuces, their leaves don't dissolve when they come into contact with the hot rashers. You get crunchy, milky-sapped leaves and sizzling bacon.
I had no idea you could eat the yellow flowers, too, until I spotted Alys Fowler making them into tiny pancakes on BBC2's The Edible Garden. I have always pounced on them before they turn to clocks and float over the nearby gardens, but now I will pounce on them with the frying pan in hand.
Nettle rabbit
I don't want to get into the whole "rarebit-versus-rabbit" argument at the moment. But whatever you think it should be called, it is still just cheese on toast. Makes enough for 2.
a little olive oil
60g nettle tops
100g crème fraîche
2 tsp grain mustard
80g grated Caerphilly
2 large slices of fresh sourdough, wholemeal or granary bread
Directions
Put the olive oil in a small pan and warm it over a moderate heat, then add the nettle tops and let them cook in the heated oil for a couple of minutes, turning them over occasionally until they have wilted.
Remove the nettle tops from the pan and roughly chop them, then mix with the crème fraîche, mustard, a little black pepper and half of the grated Caerphilly.
Toast the bread lightly on both sides. Spread the nettle filling over each piece then
scatter the retained cheese over them. Cook under an overhead grill till the cheese is hot and pale golden brown in patches. Eat immediately.
Roast lamb with garlic-leaf butter
We ate a simple lettuce salad with this, the leaves torn rather than cut, dressed with a basic vinaigrette into which I stirred a spoonful of mild honey. Serves 4 generously.
2 spring onions
30g garlic leaves
80g butter at room temperature
a little olive oil
2 large lamb fillets
Directions
Set the oven at 220C/gas mark 7. To make the butter, chop the onions and most of the garlic leaves quite finely. Mash them into the butter, grinding in a little salt and black pepper as you go.
Warm a little oil in a roasting tin and lightly brown the lamb fillets. This shouldn't take more than a minute or two over a high heat. Spread the garlic-leaf butter over the fillets on both sides. Place the reserved garlic leaves around and over the lamb.
Roast in the preheated oven for 25 minutes. Leave to rest, covered with foil, for 10 minutes then carve into thick pieces with any juices from the pan.
Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/nigelslater for all his recipes in one place
