Bittercress Hairy / WILD FOOD FOR FREE

Cardamine Hirsuta

Hairy bittercress is a pleasantly tangy plant, fleshier and sweeter than watercress.

Harvest/Pick

Hairy bittercress is a one of the first edible weeds to be pickable early in the year.

Uses

The whole plant can be eaten, and has a pleasantly sweet, mild peppery flavour. It can be used in salads, sandwiches, and as a substitute for cress, and has an affinity with cream cheese.

The slightly more spicy leaves of lady's smock, or cuckooflower (another member of the Cardamine family, C. pratensis), can be used in the same way. A medium, hairless perennial, cuckooflower is a common and widespread species of roadsides, river banks, ditches and damp grassland. The name 'cuckooflower' is shared at a local level with a number of other spring flowers, as they were an indicator of when the cuckoo was first heard in the year. However, for Cardamine pratensis, the belief that the first flowering of the plant heralds the spring song of the cuckoo has been proven in a number of areas throughout the country, from Farnham in Surrey to Dumfries in Scotland. Flowers April to June.

Chickweed / WILD FOOD FOR FREE

Stellaria media

Gardens, cultivated and waste ground.

Widespread and common throughout Europe.

A weak annual which tends to straggle and creep before it has reached any height.

It has lines of fine hairs down the stem.

Leaves: oval, bright green and soft.

Flowers: throughout the year, tiny white star-like flowers with five deeply divided petals.

Chickweed is generally regarded as a bane in gardens, but try using the chickweed instead of composting it. Those without gardens should be able to find some by any field edge, even in the winter months, but avoid areas that may have been sprayed with weedkiller.

Harvest/Pick

The pale, soft green leaves of chickweed can be picked in almost any month of the year, except when there has been a hard frost. In fact they are often at their freshest in late autumm or early in the new year. They are one of the tenderest of wild greens, with a taste reminiscent of corn salad or mild lettuce.

The leaves are too small to be picked individually, so strip bunches of the whole plant; the stems are just as tender to eat as the leaves. Or choose the younger, greener sprigs more discriminately and cut with scissors.

(Avoid confusion with the stiff, hairy, mouse-ear chickweed, and the smooth, upright, red-stemmed petty spurge, which has a slight superficial resemblance to this chickweed.)

Uses:

Cooked Chickweed

Wash the sprigs well, and put into a saucepan without any additional water. Add a knob of butter or a spoonful of oil, seasoning and some chopped spring onions.

Simmer gently for no more than 2 minutes (any longer and both taste and texture will go and the chickweed begin to resemble strands of green string), turning all the time. Finish off with a dash of lemon juice or a sprinkling of grated nutmeg.

Winter of Early Spring Salad

Mix young chickweed shoots with equal quantities of dandelion leaves, garlic mustard and hairy bittercreess (for a hint of pepperiness). Dress with a light, sharp saled dressing made from sunflower oil and lemon juice.