It's that time of year again! As we herald in Spring we love to use this time to forage as much wild garlic as we can. We are lucky enough to live near woodland areas where wild garlic grows in such abundance so we try to use it in as many different recipes as we can dream up. We have in previous years used lots of it in certain limited edition seasonal Dovebrook recipes and we hope to do so again this year.

 

If you love our Asparagus Pappardelle with Jerusalem Artichokes then we hope you'll love this dish- it has some of the same beautiful Spring flavours but it's a a lot quicker and easier to make of course! Don't worry if you can't get hold of wild garlic- you can easily swap out the wild garlic for another herb- parsley  or basil would work beautifully as well in this dish. We love to include a variety of seeds and so we used a combination of toasted pumpkin, sunflower AND hemp seeds but feel free to keep it simple and just use one of there aforementioned. You could also stick to traditional pine nuts if you prefer- but we highly recommend toasting them first as this enhancing the depth of flavour by a mile. 

 

 

Asparagus Pappardelle with Wild Garlic Pesto

(Serves 3-4)

Ingredients:

For the pesto:

100g wild garlic leaves
4 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
65g mix of toasted hemp, sunflower & pumpkin seeds
1 lemon- juice & zest
1 tsp miso paste
1 tsp maple syrup
120ml rapeseed oil
salt & pepper to taste

For the pasta:

1 tbsp of olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 medium onion, finely sliced
 zest of one lemon
1 bunch of asparagus 
100g of tender-stem broccoli or PSB
150g Pappardelle Pasta
salt & pepper to taste

Instructions:

 For the pesto:

Add all ingredients apart from the oil to a blender or food processor and pulse until you get a nice coarse chunky paste. Then slowly add the rapeseed oil with the blender running on a slow setting. Set aside.

Add the olive oil to a frying pan on a medium heat, then add the onion and cook it until it starts to turn translucent and slightly golden, then add the garlic and lemon zest and cook for a minute more before adding the asparagus spears and tender stem broccoli. Season well. Cook for roughly 6 minutes until the spears begin to turn golden/brown at the edges. Remove from heat.

Cook the pasta, drain and then mix some of the pesto into the pasta in a large bowl. Toss the asparagus mixture into the pasta and then serve immediately on plates.

Garnish with fresh herbs and more lemon zest.