One of the defining moments of the arrival of Spring in Switzerland is the emergence of bärlauch...which can fill the air with a nice scent of garlic. Bärlauch everything pops up frequently in restaurants and grocery stores during April, and it is readily available for free to those who want to do a bit of foraging. You can follow our link on bärlauch to find out more, and do pay special attention to the warning section if you plan to forage on your own...

Jack

Right, and when picking yourself, don't eat the yellow baerlauch!

Had the most aromatic and tasty Baerlauch pesto last night. So simple -- just pulverise 80g of the bear's garlic (or wild garlic or Ramson) with 80ml of olive oil and half a teaspoon of salt. Mix with spaghetti boiled al dente. Top with Parmiggiana cheese and toasted chopped walnuts if you wish.

Will try making Baerlauch soup tonight:

http://www.kochecke.com/recipe/soup-...s-bears-garlic

P.S. Last Friday the big Migros in Zugerland sold packs of this wonderful wild garlic for about CHF3 each.

Oh I just love Bärlauch..! I had eaten it many times in various dishes but had never actually seen the plant until I was taking a walk on a trail through the forest. As I was walking and talking with a friend the smell hit me and I stopped dead in my tracks and yelled out "Bärlauch..!". Sure enough, there was a large patch just to one side of the trail. I plucked a leaf, tore it in half and gave it a smell and a taste and knew I found the "plot of green gold".
A side note: all the "Bärlauch" products you see in the store now like butter and salad dressings are made from last years Bärlauch crop so if you want fresh Bärlauch it's best to take a walk in the forest.

Coop had baskets of the fresh stuff when I went in yesterday. Unfortunately I can't stand the stuff but it looked nice and fresh.

with the sudden burst of spring, the forest ground has turned into a sea of green...with a noticeable air of garlic... If you're interested in gathering your own or experimenting with using bärlauch, then perhaps you may want to check out our 10 recipe ideas for bärlauch (no ads...no charge)....
enjoy!

Thanks Jack.

Can barlauch be used as a garlic substitute for most recipes. For example, I often sauté garlic in oil to flavor the oil. Can I use barlauch in the same way?

You could try it, but it would be much milder I suspect...I think it would be better to just slice it fine (sort of like using chives) and adding that to the dish or oil as you are cooking it... Another way to go is use fresh garlic instead of the dried garlic available in Coop or Migros...very nice indeed...

Here are some more recipe ideas (in German) for bärlauch which aren't bad...there is a recipe on the third page for making bärlauch oil...

Just a few words of caution to "Bärlauch picking newbies"

Wild garlic can be easily confused with poisonous plants.
Mainly with the leaves of (Meadow Saffron) - Herbstzeitlosen and (Lily of the valley) - Maiglöckchen.

So before you hit the woods

Information

I must have seen thousands of them on Sunday when we went for a walk around Käferberg. I don't recall seeing any flowers. But Spring is late this year.

Is it best to pick them before the white flowers appear?

All I'll say is it's a basta*d to get rid of if you've got in your garden.

Definitely before they bloom...pretty mild about one month ago...and now increasingly aromatic and strong-tasting...

I always buy milk-lamb at Easter and one of my favorite ways of cooking it is wrapped in "barlauch" leaves. I just season and seal the leg of lamb then wrap it. After roasting put all the juices and leaves into a pan and make a gravy. Sieve before serving.

oh yumm I have detected a few patches in the forest where i go gathering them as well( as well a woodruff etc) as planted them in my teensy tiny veggie batch.

If you use self gathered wild garlic from the forest use it only in HOT dishes! Because of the eggs of the fox tapeworm.....

here is some stuff i have assembled about this for the yahoo swiss cookery group in 2004

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/silverspoon/
Ideas with Baerlauch



First and foremost, wild garlic is best eaten raw!! Any cooking and/or other way of preparing makes it loose lots of its flavour.......but it's up to you really


Basically you can add it to any dish you’d also add onions, chives or garlic.


So here are a couple of ideas:

- Add to scrambled eggs just before serving

- Sprinkle chopped over risotto, pasta and similar before serving

- Add to cottage cheese, sour cream or curd and similar when making a sauce for dipping vegs and so

- Add chopped in great amounts to homemade pasta dough when making noodles or ravioli OR to the filling!! (This does not need a long time of cooking and therefore the taste is quite well preserved, I tried it :-)

- Add instead of tarragon to a Hollandaise sauce to asparagus and other vegs

- Mix with grated cheese and top tomatoes with it, grill until cheese has melted

- Make Cordon-Bleus by adding entire, well washed leaves between the ham and cheese cordon bleu recipe # 375 in Silverspoon)

- For an aperitif snack, wrap a lengthwise halved leaf of wild garlic around cubed feta cheese and put cubes on toothpicks, works well with other things too such as a halved cherry tomato, bite-size chunk of bell pepper, pre-fried halved champignon etc. just let your imagination loose:-) just make sure you add only a couple of them to a variety LOL:-)

- Make Saltimbocca, that’s an Italian meat speciality of thin cut veal schnitzel with a slice of air dried ham and sage leaves secured to the top of one side of the schnitzel, swap the sage leaves for wild garlic leaves.

- Add finely chopped to Spätzli, Knöpfli or Gnocchi dough or dumplings --> #108 in Silverspoon

As these also need just a short time of cooking in the water, it should well keep the taste of the ramson.

These are couple of ideas that spring to my mind right now, someone in the Expat -Group has also posted a very good review of the herb and spurred me on to do a research and found that in the US of A you’ve a similar herb called
RAMP (Allium tricoccum), a wild plant with more onion-like flavour, is used for similar purposes.

Here’s a link for those who want to know more :-)

http://www.discoverlife.org/nh/tx/Plantae/Monocotyledoneae/Liliaceae/Allium/tricoccum/

© sylv 04

can i come for tea .. pleeeese ... :P

Thanks for the reminder. How do we kill the tapeworm eggs without wilting the bärlauch?

Wash very, very well in cold water (something that should be done for anything gathered wild...or even growing on the balcony)...

first Bärlauch in Baden

The year's first bärlauch have sprouted in the woods...and also spotted at the Oerlikon market this morning!

Our Ten Bärlauch Recipe Ideas

-- Jack

I'm with you Sandgrounder! A friend of ours forraged armsful of the stuff when he was here and made it into a pesto that he served with spaghetti ... my husband loved it but I thought it was foul! Really, one of the fews things that I just could not eat