Ramps are one of the first wild edibles that grow in my region in early spring. Ramps are also my favorite of all wild vegetables! Unfortunately, not only is the Ramp season short, but they grow only in specific conditions. The time to harvest Ramps here, is around Easter. By the second week of May they will have flowered and Ramp season is over. It seems that from the New England states to Pennsylvania and Ohio, Ramps are more widespread. But in my region, they are found in the mountains, usually near a creek, and often on a north slope. Obviously, Ramps prefer cool areas of the forest, and adequate water but not “wet feet”.
Ramps are alliums, and are often called either wild leeks or wild garlic. The rule for the alliums applies to Ramps, as well… “If it looks like an onion and smells like an onion, it is an onion.” Ramps, however, don’t look so much like onions but they certainly smell strongly of onion/garlic/leek/shallot. *And, if you eat a lot of raw ramps, so will you!* Ramps have long been considered a “blood cleanser” because, like all the alliums, they have anit-septic, anti-biotic and immune supportive properties. The fact that one who eats them raw will have breath and sweat (etc.) that smells strongly of Ramps is considered a sign that they are especially potent medicinally. The importance of making sure your plant smells like an allium is that Ramps can look similar to Lily of the Valley in early spring. Lily of the Valley has a digitalis-like effect on the heart, slowing the heart rate and lowering blood pressure. In small amounts, it is a useful medicinal herb but should only be used by experts in Herbal Medicine. Larger amounts are quite dangerous.
Ramps are strong in both flavor and scent, but are not particularly hot in taste as is garlic and some onions. Ramps are more like shallots and leeks in flavor. They are pungent, but sweet. The flavor of Ramps is absolutely superb! I enjoy them raw or cooked and when they are in season I am apt to include them in most any savory dish and many salads with dandelion greens and other spring greens. While the bulb of Ramps has a long tradition of culinary use, it is a better harvesting practice for sustainability to take only the leaves or tops and leave the bulb in the ground to regrow. Even though I cut the tops with a sharp pocket knife, I invariably end up pulling a few bulbs as I harvest. These, I save to roast with meat or glaze as a side dish. Ramp bulbs and radishes go particularly well together roasted with beef, chicken, pork or game. Glazed Ramp bulbs with carrots are remarkably tasty, and since radishes are a quick early crop and I still have carrots in the garden during Ramp season, these are easy combinations. Both the tops and bulbs combine wonderfully with potatoes and any good, natural fat.
Any way you would cook pearl onions or shallots will work for the bulbs. I will focus on the tops for these recipes.
Ramp Pesto
There are many recipes for Ramp pesto and pestos in general. Of course, the original is made with basil as the main herb. It is a simple, but delicious combination of basil, pine nuts, parm (or other hard Italian cheeses), olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. But, pesto is not so much a recipe as a technique. The name comes from the mortar and pestle used to grind the ingredients. Many herbs can be used in place of basil. A friend of mine makes a wonderful pesto using carrot tops! I often use parsley. But, when Ramps are in season, Ramp pesto is a must.
Ingredients:
1 cup or more of Ramp tops
1/4th cup or more of your favorite tree nuts or sunflower seeds (etc.)
1/4th cup of your favorite grated hard cheese
1/4th cup or more of olive oil
Crushed red pepper to taste
Lemon zest, wood sorrel or rose hips to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
You can grind it all up with a mortar and pestle, or toss it in a blender or food processor. But, I really prefer to just roughly mince the ramps. I like to leave them rough and rustic. I grind the nuts fine and grate the cheese fine, so they act as an emulsifier or binder. Either way, stir or blend together into a smooth sauce. Taste and adjust your seasonings. Feel free to add any herbs you like, but Ramps are a bold flavor and will easily overwhelm more subtle flavors. If you find the flavor too bold…. I feel sorry for you. But, if you do, you can add or substitute for a portion of the Ramps, some fresh spinach leaves.
As the Ramps come in around Easter, I often combine Ramp pesto with ham. Ham is very traditional for Easter feasts in my region. The pesto is the perfect accompaniment! I also like to combine those flavors with blue cheese. The pungent, salty, funkiness of blue cheese works perfectly with ramps!
French Onion-style Ramp soup
French Onion is my absolute favorite soup! It is a simple soup if you have the right ingredients. A pot of good French onion soup is always made with homemade stock and usually around 3 pounds of finely chopped onions. Using Ramps as the main allium makes this soup even more incredible. But, 3 pounds is a LOT of Ramps! Most French Onions soups combine onions with garlic, shallots and/or leeks. So, it makes sense to include any of these with your Ramps or even a smaller amount of Ramps with onions. The great thing about this is that it allows you to use Ramps out of season. Ramps do not dry or freeze well. They pickle wonderfully, but that ruins them for the soup. Dried Ramps make an interesting seasoning, but they lose their sweetness and take on a dark, somewhat smokey flavor. It is good to have some dried, but chives are really better for most dishes. Frozen Ramps turn mushy, and while that is unpleasant in most applications, it works perfectly for soup!
Ingredients:
As many Ramp tops as you have or are willing to use
At least a pound of onions
Several cloves of garlic
Leeks, shallots, chives, wild onions, spring onions (optional)
Real chicken, beef or game stock (see below)
Olive oil (or other natural fat… beef, chicken or duck fat work very well)
Butter (or bacon fat… etc.)
Parsley and/or other herbs of your choice…. Marjoram, savory, etc. are all good
White wine
Sherry or another fortified wine… or bourbon, brandy, etc.
Swiss cheese… or another good melting cheese with a rich flavor
Bread
Instructions:
Finely slice or chop your onions and cook them on low/medium-low heat in your oil with a good pinch of salt. The goal is to caramelize the onions. Cook them slowly and stir them until they are a rich brown, the water has evaporated completely and the sugars have developed into a sweet aroma. You can add a little sugar or sherry to help the process. Reserve.
Add a little more oil and the butter or bacon fat to your soup pot and cook your ramps (etc.), adding the crushed/chopped garlic once the other alliums are mostly cooked – be careful not to burn your garlic!
Add the caramelized onions to the cooked ramps.
Stir in the stock and at least a glass of white wine.
Season to taste with herbs, salt and pepper.
Simmer low and slow until everything comes together in a rich, full bodied soup.
Cut the bread to about the size and shape of your serving bowls and fry it lightly in oil or butter.
Fill ramekins or bowls that can go in the oven without breaking from the heat with the soup, about 3/4ths full.
Add a splash of sherry or brandy, etc.
Float the crouton (bread that has been fried in fat so it won’t become soggy) on top.
Cover the bread with grated cheese.
Place on a baking sheet and put them in the oven.
Turn on the broiler and cook just until the cheese is brown and bubbly.
ENJOY and be AMAZED!
Real stock
As I have stated, the best cooks waste the least amount of food. This is especially true in making stock. Many home cooks find making stocks daunting, especially as the old recipes include several pounds of bones, some scraps of beef, veal and pork, roasting and simmering for two days or so and constantly skimming off the fats, proteins and solids. In past centuries, such a laborious and time consuming process just came naturally. The stock pot was kept at the back of the stove or fireplace, was added to daily and simply simmered all day and most of the night due to heat from the fire. While that is not practical for many of us now, we can still make excellent stocks with reasonable amounts of time and effort in the modern kitchen.
Let’s start with a simple brown stock, made from beef bones. First, you will need some bones… say 2-5 lbs of beef shin. If you don’t raise cattle and do not know anyone who does, ask the butcher at your local grocery store. If they do not carry “soup bones”, they should be able to order them for you and they should not be very expensive. I recently found a 3 lb bag of frozen soup bones in a local grocery store for $2.99. Additionally, we need just a few scraps of meat. The bones will likely have some meat on them, so that is sufficient if you have no scraps of pork, chicken, game, veal, etc. Using two or three different critters gives more depth of flavor. But, it is not essential. If you have a little ham or something, feel free to use it, If not, don’t worry. Now, we need vegetable scraps.
Whenever you trim vegetables for cooking, or a salad, save the scraps - onion and garlic peels and ends, tomato peels, carrot tops, mushroom trimmings, fresh corn cobs, cabbage hearts, pepper stems and seeds… literally any scraps you have. Keep a bag in the freezer and add to it until you have enough if you just use a little veg per week. If you use enough veggies to fill a gallon sized bag in just a few days, simply keep them in the fridge. Make sure though, that nothing is rotting. Cut out all bad spots and don’t use anything that is mushy. When you are ready, put your bones and vegetable scraps on a roasting pan and roast them for an hour in the oven at 400 F. When the roasting is done, and everything is nicely brown, take out and let cool.
Now, comes a treat. We do not want much fat at all in our finished stock. The nicely browned bones will be full of fatty marrow. This marrow is delicious! Many people love to dig it out with a knife and spread it on bread like butter. I find it a bit rich that way, so I dig it out and combine it with softened butter and a few herbs like garlic, chives, parsley, thyme, etc. This marrow butter is amazing melted onto a nice, medium rare steak! It is also good on popcorn… and probably anything in between. Marrow butter is rich and indulgent… as I said before, profound.
While your roasted bones and bits are cooling, heat your stock pot with just a bit of fat and well brown any meat scraps you are using. The beef left on the bones will be very brown. Then, toss everything in the pot, fill the pot with cold water and bring to a simmer. Add no salt. The stock we are making is an ingredient in dishes we will season later. Traditionally, a bundle of herbs, called a bouquet garni is added - this is bay leaves, parsley and thyme, often with green tops of leek….and really, any herb you would want to add to suit your taste. I always toss in some onion, cloves and peppercorns, too. Then, just simmer all afternoon. You can skim off the foam as it rises to the top, or add a beaten egg white which will form something like a natural filter to catch all the fat and bits, then scoop that out and discard. Do not stir though if you use the egg whites - if you do you distribute everything back in. You might think of making stock as making a tea of the ingredients. Once it is all done and strained, it will yield a brown, mostly clear liquid.
That is honest brown beef stock. It can be used immediately, or frozen for later use. Many cooks like to pour the cooled stock into ice cube trays and freeze it, then transfer to a freezer bag, so they can add a cube or two to anything they wish. After straining, you can continue simmering to reduce the liquid through evaporation. As the water evaporates, the liquid thickens and becomes richer and richer until finally the demi-glace is achieved… the ultimate essence of meat flavor and rich, browned flavor.
A brown chicken stock is made much the same way, just using the scraps of roasted chicken and browning the bones. Otherwise, it is the same. A white chicken stock may be made by just skipping the browning process. The flavor of cloves goes surprisingly well with chicken. A classic technique is to use a whole onion, making slices into it and inserting a bay leaf into each of those two or three slices, then “nailing” it in place by sticking in a few cloves to secure the bay leaf.
You can do this with most any meat. And, of course, a vegetable stock is made just using the vegetable scraps. Fish stocks are made using fish bones. Shellfish stocks are made using shrimp, crab, lobster, crawfish, etc. shells. Game stocks are made just the same way - use deer, elk, bear, etc bones as you would a beef stock and wild turkey, pheasant, quail, grouse, etc. bones as you would chicken. I always think that a turkey stock tastes best if it is just made with turkey and used specifically as turkey stock. Ditto on pork. While you might use some pork in your basic brown stock of beef bones, a stock made from pork bones yields a distinctive porky flavor. I love using pork stock with beans, BTW.
This article is an excerpt from
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Disclaimer
The information on this site is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing on this site has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I am not a doctor. The US government does not recognize the practice of herbal medicine and their is no governing body regulating herbalists. Therefore, I’m just a guy who studies herbs. I am not offering any advice. I won’t even claim that anything I write is accurate or true! I can tell you what herbs have “traditionally been used for.” I can tell you my own experience and if I believe an herb helped me. I cannot, nor would I tell you to do the same. If you use any herb I, or anyone else, mentions you are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy, sensitivity or underlying condition that no one else shares and you don’t even know about. Be careful with your health. By continuing to read my blog you agree to be responsible for yourself, do your own research, make your own choices and not to blame me for anything, ever.
