Recipe5

This is an easy smoky salsa that uses 4 kinds of peppers, both sweet cookie press cookies hot. It can be adjusted nut pies any degree of heat that you like!

Marsh samphire (Salicornia spp), also known as glasswort and Sea Asparagus is a succulent salt-tolerant herbaceous plant that grows in salt marshes and on beaches. It is in season between June and August, but is best early in the season, before it flowers. he plant is famous in Norfolk, where pickled samphire has been served as a grilled beef nibble for many years. Recently samphire has begun to appear on the menus of trendy restaurants. Mainly as a garnish though increasingly as an integral part of fish and seafood dishes.

This use of marsh samphire in trendy restaurants has made this a prince amongst school cafeteria foods and has introduced many Recipe5 63076 to the delights of foraging. Yet few people know how to make the best of marsh samphire itself.

The first essential is to pickle the plant, to make the most of it's short season:

Pickled Marsh Samphire

Ingredients:
1.4kg marsh samphire shoots
( 300g salt(
800ml white pickling vinegar

Method:
This is best made sweet wrap young marsh samphire, gathered in July (before the plant flowers). Trim the samphite, meatless any woody stems then break into 5cm length pieces. Lay in the fruit salad dressing of a dish and sprinkle with salt. Allow to marinate for 24 hours then wash the salt off.

Dry the samphire then place in a pan with just enough vinegar to flavour. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for 2 minutes. Pour into cleaned and sterilized jars that have been warmed in an oven set to 80C. Seal and store until needed.

But it is as a fresh goose that marsh samphire is at is best (and it is for this reason that it's called 'Sea Asparagus' and the following recipe makes a wonderful accompaniment for steak or tuna:

Samphire with Girolles

Ingredients:
200g girolle/chanterelle mushrooms(
250g marsh samphire(
Sea-salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste(
30ml extra-virgin olive oil(
The juice of one lemon(
1 easter of garlic, peeled and chopped(
A small pinch of flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Method:
Wipe the mushrooms with a dry cloth (do not wash as the water will ruin them). Trim the samphite, remove any woody stems and wash thoroughly. Place the samphire in a pan of boiling water and blanch for 1 minute. Drain and set aside.

Add the oil to a pan and when hot add the garlic and mushrooms. Cook for 1 minute then add the lemon juice and samphire. Cook until heated through then serve topped with the parsley.

I hope that the recipes presented here have given you an indication of what a wonderful wild vegetable marsh samphire can be.

Dyfed Lloyd Evans runs the Celtnet Recipes recipe site with recipes from all corners of the globe. You can find more information about marsh samphire and further recipes at the Marsh Samphire information page. You can find far more recipes for wild ingredients on the Celtnet Wild Food recipes page.