Vegetable
Green garlic
Ajo tiernoAll tendreAllium sativum
It's garlic before it forms a bulb: the young plant, pulled while it still looks like a skinny leek. It tastes of garlic, but politely.
When
Around: Feb–May · At its best: Mar–Apr
Around: Feb–May · At its best: Mar–Apr
Around: Aug–Nov · At its best: Sept–Oct
Around here
In Catalonia spring smells of alls tendres: in a truita, in remenat with eggs (sometimes with prawns or wild asparagus) and sautéed with broad beans. They come from the same plots that planted garlic in autumn: some are pulled young and the rest are left to form bulbs.
At the market
- Thin, straight, firm stems with a clean white end.
- Green, upright leaves; if they're yellowing or limp, they've been in the crate for days.
- Best with no bulb yet: if you can feel cloves, it's stronger and stringier.
At home
- In the fridge salad drawer, wrapped in slightly damp kitchen paper: a week.
- If they come with roots and soil, trim the roots and don't wash them until you use them.
- Out of the fridge they go limp in a couple of days.
If you have too much
- Trimmed and sliced, they freeze raw without blanching: straight from the freezer to the pan.
- Blitzed with oil and salt into a green paste to freeze in ice-cube trays.
- Softened in oil over a low heat, in a jar in the fridge; use them within a week.
In the kitchen
- Green garlic omelette, the spring classic.
- Scrambled with egg and wild asparagus (or prawns, if it's Sunday).
- Sautéed with broad beans and peas, with an egg on top.
- In a spring rice dish with artichokes.
- Whole on the griddle with coarse salt and oil, like a mini calçot.
- Chopped raw over a new potato salad.
“Whoever feels the sting has been eating garlic”: if a remark bothers you, it's because it hit home.
What it brings
There's no reliable figure for this one in the tables, so we don't make one up.
Goes with
- Broad beanFeb–MayYou buy a kilo and end up with a handful: the pod weighs more than the beans. The first small, tender ones can even be eaten raw.
- AsparagusMar–JunWhite and green asparagus are the same plant: the white kind grows buried in soil and never sees the sun. The thin, bitter one that pops up wild along field edges is another species.
- PeaFeb–MayAs soon as it leaves the plant, its sugar starts turning into starch. That's why a freshly shelled one tastes of something else: sweet, almost like fruit.
- ArtichokeNov–MayIt's a flower bud eaten before it opens. It also leaves a sweet aftertaste that makes water, or wine, taste different straight afterwards.