Hedge Garlic (Jack-in-the-hedge) and Coconut Milk Soup
Ingredients :
1 Leek
2 Small Red Onions
300g of potato of your choice
50g of Hedge Garlic
200ml of Coconut Milk
1 Stock Cube
700ml of water
Small amount of Soya Butter (or similar) or olive oil
These ingredients cost £3.39 at Sainsbury's and £2.30 at Asda.
This is a super delicious and easy, dairy free, vegan and gluten free recipe. For those of you that don't know hedge garlic looks like this :
and right now while it is in flower is the perfect time to pick it. It is the perfect plant as your first foraged find ! Here is a more in depth guide to identifying it http://www.naturessecretlarder.co.uk/wild-food-useful-plants/jack-by-the-hedge-alliaria-petiolata.htm . But the biggest tell-tale sign is that when you crush the leaf it smells very strongly of onion. This stuff is absolutely EVERYWHERE and it's very tasty.
All the ingredients look like this together: I use Kallo stock cubes because they are gluten free and vegan.
1. Pick the leaves off your hedge garlic and discard the flowers and stalk , when you are picking it cut off the top part of the stem only as those are the most tender. Chop up your potatoes into chunks, I don't bother to peel them but you can if you want to . Also chop the leek and onions finely.
2. Put the butter or oil in the pan and heat gently, add the onions and leek and fry for about 3 minutes until soft.
3. Mix the stock with 700ml of boiling water ( I know it says 500ml on the stock packet but you lose a fair amount in the heating process) Bring it to a boil and the let it simmer until the potatoes are soft.
4. Put in the blender with the coconut milk and a couple of basil leaves , I then found it to be an edible temperature then but you can also put it back in the pan to heat a little. If you aren't a coconut milk fan you can skip that step and it's a very pleasant chunky vegetable soup- if you don't have a blender cho ingredients finer to begin with and just add the coconut milk at the end.
There you have it , a delicious light fluffy soup with a very slight, pleasant bitter twist. This makes 5 large bowls , from Asda works out as 43p per serving and 68p from Sainsburys.
