Ground Elder Tarte – by no means weeds!

Ground Elder Tarte – by no means weeds!

April 3rd, 2019 | main dishes

Ground elder, the weed known as “gardener’s fright”, is considered ineradicable. What can be done about it? Just eat it! Ground elder is delicious (and so healthy) in salads, as lemonade, pesto or – as in my recipe – as ground elder tarte.

Ground Elder Tarte – by no means weeds!

Once you have the ground elder in the garden, you will hardly get rid of it. With its underground offshoots it spreads rapidly. As a gardener you hardly have a chance against it. But if you know how good this wild vegetable tastes, you begin to reconcile with this herb. In addition, it is awarded a great healing power in rheumatism, arthritis and gout. That’s why ground elder is also commonly called “Zipperleinskraut” [gout’s herb] in Germany.

Ground elder can be prepared as a vegetable such as spinach and thus suits very well for tartes or as a filling for dumplings. As a substitute for parsley, it can be added to any food and the young, barely unfolded leaves are perfect addition to any salad. Of course, you can also dry it and use for tea or chop and freeze it. Then you have a supply for the winter, because experienced herbal women say you should eat ground elder daily…

Since we know how good it tastes, we look forward to the ground elder in spring as we do to wild garlic & Co. Now we just have to think about what to do with the whole field horsetail in the garden. Any ideas?

Here is the recipe for my ground elder tarte. It tastes warm and cold alike.

Ground elder tarte

(4 portions – preheat the oven to 190° C)

350 g of flour

3 TS olive oil

about 150 ml of lukewarm water

use the dough hook or your hands to make a smooth dough, roll out and line a springform greased with olive oil (if you like, cut out strips out of the dough leftovers and decorate the tarte with it before baking)

150 g of streaky bacon, diced

1 TS olive oil

fry the bacon in the oil over a gentle heat

2 onions, diced

2 cloves of garlic, diced

add, sauté

salt, pepper from the mill

nutmeg from the mill

2 ts Niora (alternatively: 1 ts mild paprika)

spice up

200 g of ground elder leaves

wash, drain, put some leaves aside as decoration, chop the remaining leaves very roughly

add 2/3 of the leaves to the onion-bacon mixture, sauté briefly, remove from heat, leave to cool, then stir in the remaining chopped leaves

150 g of Parmesan, grated

stir in, spread the mixture on the tarte-bottom

2 eggs

100 g crème double

whisk and pour on the tarte

bake at 190° C for about 50 minutes

And this is how the wife of the captain does it

I swear by the spices and spice blends of „Altes Gewürzamt“ [Old Spice Office] of Ingo Holland in Klingenberg. Optimal for the ground elder tarte is Niora, a dried, mild paprika from Spain with pleasant earthy and sweet aromas. Niora has no sharpness, but amazing aroma!

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Carne de vinha d'alho - marinated pork with wine-garlic sauce and slices of orange and lemon

December 12th, 2018 | main dishes

Carne de vinha d’alho (pork in wine-garlic sauce)

We remember this dish as a very special Christmas dinner on Madeira island. It is already a few years back, we had booked very spontaneously. Arriving on the 24th of December, without any restaurant reservation for the holidays. Just following our noses at Christmas day we ended up in a small fisherman bar near to Maddalena do Mar. The tiny bar was packed. We were the only tourists. There was no menu, and apparently only one single dish. “Christmas dinner”, they told us.