Thinking of Spring: I Miss Ramps (Part II)

Ramps have become a favourite ingredient of mine in several recipes. In the early spring when we harvested them we made ramp butter, and it is still in my freezer, ready to be added to a variety of dishes. The ramp butter has kept well in the freezer, this will be my future go-to method for long-term preservation of this plant.

The only down-side to foraging that I have encountered is that plants/mushrooms are seasonal, and sometimes they are only harvestable for a brief window of time (i.e. fiddle-heads). The ramps I encountered were safe to collect for several weeks; however once they begin to flower you probably shouldn't eat them.

As much as I miss fresh ramps, I am very happy that there is still a little bit left in my freezer.

Prepare And Clean Your Ramps
Cleaning is simple. Get home and rinse under cold water and/or put them in a bath to get all the soil off. Trim the roots off the bulbs and dispose of. Depending on what you plan to use your ramps for, you can separate the leaves from the stalk and store them separately. They will most likely keep for a week or two, however I'm not sure since we ate these pretty quickly.

Bag full of cleaned ramps. Have you ever seen anything so wonderful?

Ramps can be used in place of garlic and/or onions. They have a strong flavour, so use sparingly depending on your taste preferences. Make your own recipe, or if you'd like check out the ones below that I have made.

Ramp Butter Mix
This one is easy. All you need is ramps, butter, and a food processor/blender/etc. You can use the entire ramp, or just the stalk. When I made this I used the whole plant, it gives your butter a beautiful green colour (note: this green colour will affect the colour of any meal you make using ramp-butter).

You can make this to any consistency/strength of flavour you want. We kept adding butter and ramps until we were satisfied. If you are using the entire ramp, you will probably want to add several individual plants to every 1/4 cup butter you are using. This is only a suggestion though.

With your butter at room temperature, put in food processor. Add the ramps, torn or chopped, and blend together. Drizzle in a little olive oil if you want your ramp butter mix thinner. When your ramp butter mix is at the right consistency, it should look wonderfully green and by slightly creamy since it's been blended. Freeze, or keep in the fridge for a little while.

What To Use Ramp Butter In
The easiest thing to do with ramp butter is to toast it on good bread. Just slather it on slices of bread and toast them in the oven (generally a few minutes at around 350F). Pretty tasty addition to some meals (i.e. soups, pastas, etc.).

When we foraged for fiddle-heads this year I also cooked them in ramp butter. However, I will post my recipe of this when I do a post on fiddle-heads.

Ramp butter is versatile and could be used in stir-fry dishes and pastas. I recently made a (mostly) lactose-free Alfredo-style seafood pasta sauce and sauteed the onions and garlic in ramp butter.

Vibrant green colour from ramps. The smell was delicious.

The ramp butter was a wonderful addition to the dish, but it did give the white sauce a mild green colour. I didn't mind, it was so delicious.

The next time I get a chance to harvest lions mane I plan on using it in a similar pasta dish. I would also like to sautee the lions mane in ramp butter, I think the garlicy-taste of ramps would compliment the mushroom's seafood-like taste and texture.

Escargot with Ramp Butter
The other thing I like to do with ramp butter is cook escargot in it. For this you will need:

• 1 can escargot (roughly a dozen individual escargot)
• equivalent number of mushrooms (caps only, remove stems)
• ramp butter
• small amount of olive oil to drizzle on baking sheet

Preheat oven to 350F. Drain can of escargot, rinse with water a couple of times. Rinse mushrooms and remove caps, place upside down on baking sheet that has been greased with olive oil (or use a legitimate escargot dish or other baking dish). Take softened (room-temperature) ramp butter and add roughly 1 tsp into each mushroom cap, spread around inside of cap. Place an escargot into each mushroom cap. Place dish in oven, cook for roughly 15 minutes (or until everything is thoroughly cooked and escargot/mushrooms begin to brown slightly). 

Escargot in mushroom caps with ramp butter. Served with baked balsamic tomatoes. Nice light meal.

Ramp & Potato Soup

The day that we harvested most of the ramps was a cold, wet, typical Southern Ontario early spring day. We were out hiking with the dogs for hours in the mud and rain, covering tons of ground off-trail to find ideal patches of ramps (that also were at a low chance of being harvested by other people). We also harvested a bunch of fiddle-heads that day, but as I mentioned before I will do a detailed post of foraging for fiddle-heads in the future. 

I planned to make a ramp and potato soup for dinner, and after spending so many hours cold and foraging it was the best way to end the day. Warm, comforting, scrumptious. 

I should also mention that I'm lactose intolerant, so my recipes will typically call for lactose-free alternatives. Just substitute milk or your own dairy alternatives if needed. That being said, I love butter and cooking with it.

• 1 tbsp. butter
• 2-4 cups of chopped cleaned ramps (entire plant, bulb, stalk, and leaves) (amount used depends on how strong you want your soup and how successful your foraging it)
• 4-6 small to medium sized potatoes, peeled and chopped
• roughly 1.5 litres of chicken or vegetable broth
• 1-2 cups un-sweetened almond milk (or regular milk or cream)
• salt & pepper
• optional: grated Parmesan cheese or other delicious cheese
• optional: bacon (or fried ham), crumbled or chopped into small pieces
• optional: thicken with a small amount of flour

Sautee chopped ramps in butter until it becomes aromatic and the stalks are beginning to turn translucent. Add copped potato and broth; cover and bring to boil. Once at a boil reduce to simmer and cook for roughly 30 minutes (or until potatoes are soft). Remove from heat and pour into blender or food processor. Puree until smooth; add to pot and heat up again. Add almond milk (or alternative); stir in. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

Spoon into bowls. To create (in my opinion) the ultimate ramp and potato soup, grate Parmesan cheese in bowl and garnish with some crumbled bacon. Serve ramp butter toast alongside soup.

This soup is delicious. But you might have some pretty garlicy-breath after. A small price to pay for such yumminess.

Ramp soup. Ramp butter toast. Ramp butter sauteed fiddle-heads. Trout.

There are few things in life that I have experienced that are as satisfying as going out on the land, harvesting wild plants, then making a home-made delicious meal out of those things.