From Garden To Plate. A garden staple used in an unexpected way.
Chives are a staple for my garden as they are for many other gardeners. Have you ever considered using their beautiful flowers? Here is a little recipe that can jazz up your salads in a bit of an unexpected way.
The first thing you are going to want to do is harvest the flowers before they go to seed. This is also going to help prevent unwanted chives popping up all over your beautiful garden from when they reseed themselves.
Just snip them right off at the flower head. I grab some of the greens as well because it will make for a lovely salad later in the day and why harvest twice.
Once you get your delightful harvest back to the kitchen you will see that this process is so simple and creates such an eye catching end result. You are going to want to lightly wash your flowers and pat them dry with a paper towel to get rid of any debris from the garden. Once this is done I like to gently use my mortar and pestle to compact the flowers and break them ever so slightly.
Place them in a mason jar and press them down to the bottom. You are then going to cover them with white vinegar. Don't be surprised, they will float up to the top. You don't need to worry about sterilizing your jar with this recipe but you are more than welcome to. I just make sure mine are nice and clean and freshly washed. I use vinegar at room temperature and I will set it sit for several weeks in a dark, cool space. If you need a quick version you can cover with boiling vinegar and let sit for several hours. This will do the trick too however you will get a much denser flavour by infusing it over time.
Recipe:
1 cup fresh chive blossoms
1 1/2 cups white vinegar
Instructions:
Trim the blossoms from the stems of the chives
Wash and pat dry
crush gently with mortar and pestle
place in mason jar and press to the bottom
cover with vinegar
let sit for 2 weeks in cool dry space
strain blossoms from vinegar
Commentaires