Saturday 15 April 2017

Where the Wild Things
Are served for Lunch

Linguine with Wild Garlic Pesto
Wild Garlic gathered in the Vienna Woods,
Walnuts, olive oil, salt, Parmesan
Bon appetit!

The Vienna Woods
Where the Wild Green Things are!

Bärlauch:
Allium ursinum L.
Bear's garlic, Ramson, Wild garlic:
A relative of the American "ramp"
Allium tricoccum, also Erba orsina,
Aglio orsino or ail sauvage


First served
on this blog in
April 2006
Photographed
with my late little Sony Cybershot
Kaputt, but not forgotten!

Images and Text
© by Merisi

Please respect my work:
Lifting pictures off my blog
and using them to illustrate
your own blog
is violating my
copyright.


31 comments:

  1. I should have rotated that plate! ;-)

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    Replies
    1. No, I think having the plate the way it is lets the eye focus on the contents. Well done! And looks delicious!!

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  2. Merisi,
    Where exactly in the vienna woods does one find all this berlauch? hoping to pick a batch myself this weekend!
    Love the blog!

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  3. The New Diplomat's Wife,
    thank you!

    You'll find plenty of wild ramp along Höhenstrasse, for example along the stretch between Keylwertgasse (in the 19th District) and Neuwaldegger Strasse. Only a few hundred meters from Keylwertgasse you'll notice a meadow to your right and then a brook, that's a nice area to talk a walk and collect your greens. Another one just before you reach the intersection with Neuwaldegger: to your left, a path leads down to a foot bridge across a brook, plenty of opportunities there too (there is often one of those farm stands there, just before a few apartment buildings).

    There are opportunities to stop all along Höhenstrasse, just drive along it and you'll see you don't even need any help spotting those green fields of Bärlauch. Good luck! :-)

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  4. Tess Kincaid,
    I agree!
    And it would be outright paradise if along with those ramps time would grow exponentially! ;-)

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  5. OMG, I've just decided I have to make this for dinner tonight! (with ordinary garlic, alas, Viennese woods being unavailable to me, but I know it's going to be delicious all the same). If only I had an exquisite bowl like this (Spode?) ...

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  6. Karen@PasGrand-Chose,
    you could grow your own garlic shoots and make pesto with them. The plate is Spode.

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  7. Is that Klingon gahk in the bowl? :)

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  8. Charles Gramlich,
    funny, this is the second time today that somehow Star Trek crosses my screen. ;-)

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  9. This is such an exquisite fresh meal. It's wonderful to see green again.

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  10. Wonderful idea! I will try this out next week ;-) Fortunately I live just near the Wienerwald))

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  11. Thank you, El, Svet and Carol! :-)
    (I just now was surprised to see that I published a post today, after all. After a 17 hour day, I can't seem to remember a thing of what I did!)

    Good night from Vienna,
    Merisi

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  12. Huuuummmm bon appetit Merisi ! I will try your recipe. I haven't ail sauvage of the Wiener woods, but garlic, may be, I can find ail sauvage of France :) . The Wiener woods are amazing !
    Have a nice week-end !
    Greetings, amitiés,
    Nathanaëlle

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  13. Merisi, I'd also like to try this dish, your photos are inspiring me.

    Still no tulip blooms along Park Avenue.

    Still wearing my down coat!

    xo

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  14. I see that life is as beautiful and delicious as ever in your Viennese world, Merisi. At first glance I thought that was something that grew in the woods behind my childhood home - something we called skunk cabbage. The four year old me thought it was lovely and picked the greens as a bouquet for my mother! It smelled just like skunk. Your wild garlic would not have gotten tossed back into the woods as my leaves did. Your pasta looks amazing.
    I so appreciated your kind comment about my movie. It really meant alot to me.
    Sending you all my best for a glorious spring weekend -
    Catherine

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  15. I thought they looked like ramps! Which are in the woods just now -- not on our farm, alas, but I think I know where I can get some... your pasta looks wonderful!

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  16. yum ... looks so delicious. And the plants are so pretty :)

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  17. Baerlauch soup is one of the most delicious soups I know, it rivals asparagus as one of my favourites. Unfortunately I have not found it in any nursery here in Australia.
    That pesto looks so delicious!

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  18.  @ Nathanaëlle:
    David Lebovitz spotted ail sauvage at the market in Vevey, along Lake Geneve:
    David Lebovitz at the Vevey Market.
    He calls it l’ail à l’Ours.
    I would love to know whether you can find it!
    In Austria, even supermarkets carry it this time of the year.

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  19. Frances,
    hard to believe that Park Avenue tulips are so far behind this year!
    I will try to post some pictures i took yesterday. The city is full of spring blossoms, and the tulips at the Stadtpark entrance are at the height of their bloom.

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  20.  © A Thousand Clapping Hands
    Catherine, your movie is beautiful beyond words, you are such an inspiration!
    I have read that wild garlic - the American variety, "ramp" - grows in the woods along the Potomac near Harper's Ferry, but never ventured out there in springtime.
    I wonder if you find any in your area.

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  21. @Vicki Lane,
    I am looking forward to see pictures from your wild garlic woods! ;-)

    @Dorte
    they are even prettier once they start blooming, but then the woods really come alive with garlic fragrance. Almost too much, one can smell it driving through the Vienna Woods on Höhenstrasse with windows open. ;-)

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  22. @ Paris Breakfasts,
    Carol, any old basil pesto recipe will do, just use wild garlic and walnuts (or you lucky souls, those sweet pecan nuts which here are always near the end of their life).

    I simply cut the wild garlic leaves into stripes and through them into the Cuisinart - fitted with the metal blade - together with the walnut halves. Chop them roughly, add a bit of salt (I like it on the sweet side), then with the machine running, add good olive oil in a thin stream, until the mass reaches a soft consistency, but is not too runny (which would mean too much oil added). Contrary to most recipes, I like to add freshly grated Parmesan (the real Parmiggiano Reggiano, please) at the table, but none with the pesto itself.

    Bon appetit! :-)

    .

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  23. @ Arija,
    oh yes, Bärlauch soup is tops! :)
    So sorry you can't find it in Australia.

    I could send you Bärlauch seeds.
    Please let me know if I can help you.
    I imagine they'd grow well in your winter season (they need frost in order to germinate, but I suppose you could stick them in the freezer for a bit?).

    Sunny greetings from Vienna,
    Merisi

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  24. Coucou Merisi !
    Yes, wa call it "Ail des Ours" in France also ! But I live not in Paris now, I live near moutains, I don't think to find ail des ours in our forest.
    Thank you and Küsschen

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  25. How beautiful! :-) I love foraging. :-)

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  26. I do not know what I like MORE the pesto or the DISH!
    XX

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