Pickled Purslain

Now is the time to gather all those pesky purslain stems and to pickle them for winter salads and garnishes. Blanche for 5 seconds and pack stems and leaves into a jar and cover with four parts vinegar to one part water with 2 tablespoons salt dissolved in it, add 1 teaspoon black peppercorns and 2 large garlic cloves crushed. Cover and set in a cool place for two weeks [this is a fermented pickle--keep submerged and remove any scum that might form; then use in salads, as a garnish or stirred into scrambled egs or sandwich fillings. Purslain is very high in protein and iron and is a very underrated pot herb/vegetable--try stirfrying it with butter.

Purslane \Purs"lane\, noun. [Old French expression porcelaine, pourcelaine (compare to Italian expression porcellana), corrupted from Latin porcilaca for portulaca oleracea.].

Pissenlit or Dandelions

Dandelions (dente lion) or pissenlit (piss in bed—from its use as a diuretic) is an herb with many uses. Leaves harvested early in spring can be eaten as a salad vegetable; its blossoms make a delicate wine, jelly and syrup for flavoring drinks. Its leaves can also be cooked like spinach.

When cooking older dandelion leaves (now when they are tough, instead of waiting for fresh ones in the Fall) requires a slightly more complicated cooking technique. Gather your greens, rinse, and blanch in boiling water for 10 minutes (this will remove some of the bitterness this green is known for). Drain and continue cooking with fresh water for about 10-20 minutes, or until tender to your taste. Serve with vinegar and oil.

Dandelion greens can also be wilted in a pan of hot oil and a little minced garlic and/or onions. Again, serve with vinegar.

Hard-cooked eggs can be grated or sliced over the greens, as well. And the flavors of your vinegars and oils will change its flavor, too.

Spruce Tips - Jelly & Beer & Salad

Pick only soft, light-colored tips--if they are hard, or dark, they will taste of "turpentine."



Spruce Tip Jelly
Pick about 6 cups of spruce tips selecting only the smallest, less open ones in the early spring. Rinse in cold water. Chopping them gives them more flavor than leaving them whole. Cover the tips with water and simmer for 10 minutes. Let stand overnight, strain with cheesecloth.

7 cups prepared spruce tip juice
1 cup lemon juice
2 packages MCP pectin (18thC cooks would have used tart apples or quince jelly)
10 cups sugar
1/4 tsp. butter (optional)
Mix juice with lemon juice and pectin, stir until dissolved. Bring to a full rolling boil for 2 minutes (or jelly test). Add butter to control foaming and pour into jars and seal. Serve on your favorite breads or heat and serve on pancakes. Or just spoon it out of the jar. But don't get caught!

Prince of Wales Island Fair Recipes, 1st issue, 1998
Recipe submitted by Sharon Hillis, Whale Pass, Alaska

Use left over tea for drinking or brew up another batch just for drinking. Add water to dilute and honey to taste.

Spruce beer was the frontier's answer to scurvy prevention.

Benjamin Franklin's Spruce Beer Source: Thomas Manteufel

A Way of Making Beer with Essence of Spruce:

For a Cask containing 80 bottles, take one pot of Essence and 13 Pounds of Molases. -or the same amount of unrefined Loaf Sugar; mix them well together in 20 pints of hot Water: Stir together until they make a Foam, then pour it into the Cask you will then fill with Water: add a Pint of good Yeast, stir it well together and let it stand 2 or 3 Days to ferment, after which close the Cask, and after a few days it will be ready to be put into Bottles, that must be tightly corked. Leave them 10 or 12 Days in a cool Cellar, after which the Beer will be good to drink.

Comments: Translated from the french while he was stationed in France.

The light bluish-green tips make a delightfully citrusy, spritely addition to green salads.