Cooking With Foruged Foods

 Well I have now completed my Kokomai - Wairarapa Arts Festival - activities. I have enjoyed Cooking with Foruged Foods by Antony; michelin trained chef from London who now owns Wakelin House in Greytown. 
It was such a treat to be part of four participants who paid a modest $67 to be part of the workshop. 
The four trainee chefs!! did the prep and Antony did the cooking.

Firstly we had to identify foruged greens that Antony had collected from his Featherston Farmlet and some of it he collected from the garden at the rear of the restaurant.

 Meanwhile outside the library next door childrens theatre aound pirates was taking place.

So we did the preparation which including grating cheese, chopping wild fennel and mushrooms.

Our first recipe was panna cotta made with wild fennel and a fennel syrup.  I can tell you it was to die for.

Here we made a salsa of wild onion, olive oil and garlic. And as the photos below show we also made a mushroom sauce with cream, garlic, butter and loads of cream to accompany gnocchi.

We used only the best ingredient, organic egg yolks and local cheeses.

Every chef recommends the best mixing method is clean hands.

I thought gnocchi was one of the mysterious things that only experienced cooks could make. How wrong I was, it was the easiest recipe and to get the markings you place a small amount on the fork prongs and roll it off with your thumb.

Here is the onion weed salsa, easy and so tasty and from something most people consider a noxious weed.

 The gnocchi was cooked in hot salted water and then fried which is an option to brown but not essential. 

Our day concluded with us eating all that we made and was washed down with a lovely local pino gris. I have been left inspired to start using what until now I considered weeds, after all how many of you have battled with wild onion. Use it as a cooking ingredient in salsas, in place of onions and great as a stuffing ingredient.

Wakelin House, Main Street, Greytown. Inside is a beautiful restaurant, open fire, white tablecloths, silver service, top class. And a menu full of foruged local foods.