pirnten printen
Geen categorie, Glutenfree, Good food on a budget, Lactose-free, Nut-free, Recipes, Swedish flavors, Vegan, Vegetarian
Leave a comment

Bear’s garlic pesto with baked carrots and red onion

Right now, the delicacy bear’s garlic is coming out of the ground like crazy in my part of Sweden. Right now, a beautiful spring sun is shining over our beautiful Österlen in the south. Right now it feels like a brisk contrast to what is happening in the rest of the world. Right now.
Still, I cook. I make bear’s garlic pesto with baked carrots and red onion. So trivial as it is in this situation right now.Because it is at THIS very moment you should enjoy bear’s garlic! Even though the world is crazy, strange and sometimes very difficult to understand… The bear’s garlic is coming with an unbelievable strength from the cold ground. It often grows near rippling streams and comes back every year but is only there for a limited time. You have to eat while it is here!

It happens al of a sudden, the forest starts to smell like garlic. You sniff and wonder what’s going on. Until you remember and understand.
The bear’s garlic are one of the first to arrive in the spring. Just after comes nettles and dandelions to be followed by even more. Bear’s garlic and its friends is a weed though still loved as a delicacy at the beginning of the year. Before they take over, growing big and want’s to take over your garden.

In this part of Sweden we have an overflow of bear’s garlic and it grows so much that you can fill a whole bag in just a few minutes. In Stockholm it is an expensive delicacy. In some parts you are not even allowed to pick it and in the Netherlands it’s very rare. But maybe that’s the beauty of it? I have a dream of going picking cloudberries once in a lifetime and it seems as almost unreachable where it as normal as picking fresh strawberries in the north. In other parts of the country, bear’s garlic are considered the finest. How lucky we are to have so many different delicacies across our long country to enjoy!

Bear’s garlic pesto with baked carrots and red onion

Today I make a bear’s garlic pesto and serve it with baked carrots with whole fennel seeds and red onion with thyme. In addition, I added some sour plant-based yogurt when serving. It adds a nice punch to it and the necessary acid. It taste great together with some boiled potato and a salad straight off. Or maybe with a steak with lentils for a more filling dish?

The bear’s garlic on its own can be a pretty strong knockout for whomever so I choose to blend my bear’s garlic with sweet green peas. A bonus is that the peas keep their light green color better which is nice if you want to prepare and store in the refrigerator for a few days.
Instead of using pine nuts for my pesto, I used crushed, roasted pumpkin seeds. There is a true magic happening when you roast the seeds and their full potential taste comes to its right! I also added some lime juice to it because of its slightly milder taste than lemon juice.
I used two different oils to not get an overwhelming taste from any of them. It’s up to you how you prefer it.
The pesto you can use for a salad, in a soup or why not just pasta? Do you want to start everything with red onions, carrots and finish making pesto. meanwhile, the potatoes can cook and dinner is not too far away.

Bear’s garlic pesto with baked carrots and red onion

4 persons

Oven baked red onion
Ingredients
At least one red onion per person
Salt and freshly grounded pepper
Ca 1 tsp dried thyme
About 1.5 tbsp olive oil

How do I do it?
1. Preheat the oven to 225 ° C.
Cut the red onions so you get two equal halves. If you like you can cut a tiny piece of the end off to make stand stand better in the oven dish.
Place the onions with the open side up still with the skins in an oven dish.
2. Add salt and pepper and sprinkle with thyme. Finish with some oil on each onion. Put the oven dish into the oven for about 30-40 minutes. The onions should be perfectly soft through and through when it’s time to serve.

Baked carrots

Ingredients
800 grams carrots
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tbsp of whole fennel seeds
About 1.5 tbsp olive oil

How do I do it?
1. Use the same temperature on the oven as the onion, 225 ° C. If you scrape the skin of the carrots with a knife rather than pealing, I think they absorb more taste. Place them in a baking dish.
2. Salt and pepper and sprinkle with whole fennel seeds. Drizzle some olive oil over and shake the oven dish so that all carrots are evenly covered with the herbs and oil.
3. Put the oven dish into the oven for about 20-30 minutes. The carrots should be soft but preferably with a bite when serving

Bear’s garlic pesto without nuts and cheese

Ingredients
1 dl / 70 grams of pumpkin seeds
2 dl / 120 grams of green peas
2 handfuls / 40 grams of fresh bear’s garlic
3 tbsp / 15 grams of nutritional yeast
juice of 0.5-1 lime
0.5 dl / 35 grams of rapeseed oil
5 dl / 35 grams of olive oil
A. good pinch of a nice flaky salt

How do I do it?
1. Roast the pumpkin seeds in a dry baking pan until golden and you can smell wonderfully nutty.2. Pour the pumpkin seeds into a mixer, grind them not too fine.
3. Add all the other ingredients and mix until you get a pesto in the texture you want. It can be both rather rough or finely ground almost like a sauce (add more oil if you wanted that way)
4. Taste with salt and possibly additional lime juice.
Pour into a bowl and add it to the carrots when it’s time to eat. To keep it, add some extra oil on top before placing it in a air proof container. Store it in the refrigerator up til a few days.

This recipe is free of nuts, lactose and gluten.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.