Although I'd dearly love to move to somewhere a bit more rural, I have come to recognise the diversity of habitats we have at our disposal locally and one of these is the esturies of the Medway and Thames. At the end of the summer I sampled our local marsh samphire and also experimented with pickling it (raw cooked or pickled it's delicious!) so prompted by a conversation on another forum which reminded me of this, yesterday we went down onto the marshes to see what's about.
Found rosehips, many of which are still nice and firm, sloes (pretty much wrinkled and a bit past it but useful for cooking perhaps), hawthorn berries (which can make a lovely jelly & at the right time of year can be plump, sweet, and quite nice to nibble) masses of sea beet (a favourite green veg. of mine - much nicer than spinach), gorse flowers, yarrow, fennel, and sea purslane. I'm experimenting with wild teas or tisanes so I collected some rosehips, yarrow, fennel and gorse flowers, a generous pile of sea beet and some sea purslane which I'd not tried before.
Sea purslane is a funny unprepossessing marsh plant with oval grey green leaves that have a matt texture which where we are seems to like growing in the mixed grassy scrub just around the high water line. I guess it's occasionally submerged, as it often has bits of dry seaweed clinging to it. You may find it's a bit fiddly picking off the largest and best of these leaves, but when you do find a good spot there are certainly plenty to be had and as I discovered when I cooked them, really well worth the effort put in as they're quite delicious! (Raw, they are slightly crunchy and mildy salty).
If you can find some and fancy trying it gather as many as you can (a couple of handfuls per person is good if it's a side veg), picking only the largest & cleanest. Bring them home and sort to remove any odd debris that has sneaked into the bag, them wash them well in some nice cold water a couple of times to make sure they're really clean and not gritty and to remove any old seaweed clinging to them. Then you can steam them lightly - I use a sieve and spread the leaves in a thinnish layer in it then cover with a lid and steam gently for about 10 minutes (depends on how many leaves you have to steam, but you want them evenly cooked through).
They go a deep but quite bright green when they're ready. Turn out into a buttered serving dish, add another generous knob of butter, some freshly ground black pepper to taste and a light squeeze of lemon juice. Fabulous!! I didn't have any to try it with, but I bet it'd be great alongside a fresh poached salmon fillet served with some new potatoes. Hmmmmmmmmm.
I'm definitely going back for more.
The teas were interesting. I quite liked the yarrow tea, which I found mildly aromatic, but there may not have been enough leaves as I found the flavour too weak to descibe. Will try that one again but pick a larger quantity. (Just a note - Yarrow has some qualities that might affect some people - it's not to be used too frequently or in too much quantity. Also, there are some who've documented it's psycotropic effects, esp. when linked to alcohol so read up on it first and decide for yourselves if you're temped to try it)
Gorseflowers steeped make the water a lovely golden colour. It smells a little acrid (might not be quite the right choice of word, I may have to think of another that sums it up) and it has dry, slightly bitter overtones so some might want to sweeten it slightly. I think it may be quite good in a blend with something that has very sweet notes so I'll work on it. also I had dried the flowers for use, so next time I may try fresh ones to see if there's any discernable difference.
Fennel. Well I already love fennel's anniseed aroma and flavour so it was a favourite, but to get the best of it bruise the young leaves gently before steeping and don't leave them in too long. Very nice to sip though and I think it'd be a good drink for the summertime.
Rosehip. I dried the hips after de-seeding and chopping the flesh lightly. If you just use a tea ball it can take quite a while for the flavour to develop & your tisane can get a bit cold, so I think I future I'll follow a suggestion I saw elsewhere of placing the hips into a pan of boiling water and simmering them for a few minutes to get the fullest flavour. If you like the taste of rosehips (and I do), it's a nice refreshing drink. I don't sweeten mine, but honey could be added if preferred. I will also try this with fresh hips to see what difference it makes to the brew. I think I may also try blending it with the gorse - but I'll get back to you on that.
Quantities of fresh ingredients were approx 2 tablespoons or enough to fill a good sized tea ball. Dry ingredinets where mentioned = 1 tablespoon.
Happy New Year all.
_________________
Edited once to correct some embarassingly god awful spelling!
Found rosehips, many of which are still nice and firm, sloes (pretty much wrinkled and a bit past it but useful for cooking perhaps), hawthorn berries (which can make a lovely jelly & at the right time of year can be plump, sweet, and quite nice to nibble) masses of sea beet (a favourite green veg. of mine - much nicer than spinach), gorse flowers, yarrow, fennel, and sea purslane. I'm experimenting with wild teas or tisanes so I collected some rosehips, yarrow, fennel and gorse flowers, a generous pile of sea beet and some sea purslane which I'd not tried before.
Sea purslane is a funny unprepossessing marsh plant with oval grey green leaves that have a matt texture which where we are seems to like growing in the mixed grassy scrub just around the high water line. I guess it's occasionally submerged, as it often has bits of dry seaweed clinging to it. You may find it's a bit fiddly picking off the largest and best of these leaves, but when you do find a good spot there are certainly plenty to be had and as I discovered when I cooked them, really well worth the effort put in as they're quite delicious! (Raw, they are slightly crunchy and mildy salty).
If you can find some and fancy trying it gather as many as you can (a couple of handfuls per person is good if it's a side veg), picking only the largest & cleanest. Bring them home and sort to remove any odd debris that has sneaked into the bag, them wash them well in some nice cold water a couple of times to make sure they're really clean and not gritty and to remove any old seaweed clinging to them. Then you can steam them lightly - I use a sieve and spread the leaves in a thinnish layer in it then cover with a lid and steam gently for about 10 minutes (depends on how many leaves you have to steam, but you want them evenly cooked through).
They go a deep but quite bright green when they're ready. Turn out into a buttered serving dish, add another generous knob of butter, some freshly ground black pepper to taste and a light squeeze of lemon juice. Fabulous!! I didn't have any to try it with, but I bet it'd be great alongside a fresh poached salmon fillet served with some new potatoes. Hmmmmmmmmm.
I'm definitely going back for more.
The teas were interesting. I quite liked the yarrow tea, which I found mildly aromatic, but there may not have been enough leaves as I found the flavour too weak to descibe. Will try that one again but pick a larger quantity. (Just a note - Yarrow has some qualities that might affect some people - it's not to be used too frequently or in too much quantity. Also, there are some who've documented it's psycotropic effects, esp. when linked to alcohol so read up on it first and decide for yourselves if you're temped to try it)
Gorseflowers steeped make the water a lovely golden colour. It smells a little acrid (might not be quite the right choice of word, I may have to think of another that sums it up) and it has dry, slightly bitter overtones so some might want to sweeten it slightly. I think it may be quite good in a blend with something that has very sweet notes so I'll work on it. also I had dried the flowers for use, so next time I may try fresh ones to see if there's any discernable difference.
Fennel. Well I already love fennel's anniseed aroma and flavour so it was a favourite, but to get the best of it bruise the young leaves gently before steeping and don't leave them in too long. Very nice to sip though and I think it'd be a good drink for the summertime.
Rosehip. I dried the hips after de-seeding and chopping the flesh lightly. If you just use a tea ball it can take quite a while for the flavour to develop & your tisane can get a bit cold, so I think I future I'll follow a suggestion I saw elsewhere of placing the hips into a pan of boiling water and simmering them for a few minutes to get the fullest flavour. If you like the taste of rosehips (and I do), it's a nice refreshing drink. I don't sweeten mine, but honey could be added if preferred. I will also try this with fresh hips to see what difference it makes to the brew. I think I may also try blending it with the gorse - but I'll get back to you on that.
Quantities of fresh ingredients were approx 2 tablespoons or enough to fill a good sized tea ball. Dry ingredinets where mentioned = 1 tablespoon.
Happy New Year all.
_________________
Edited once to correct some embarassingly god awful spelling!
Well, it looks like you've got it sussed now.
