This is a delicious marinade, sauce or condiment, originating from Argentina, originally made with flat leaf pasley, garlic, chilli, oil, oregano and red wine vinegar, but since wild garlic season is in full flow, it makes perfect sense to replace the garlic with wild garlic, which also adds loads  more minerals, phytochemicals and health benefits!

This is a delicious sauce to dip sourdough into, it works great tossed with potatoes before oven roasting them or with any oven roast veggies. I chopped the herbs finely rather than blitzing them which results in a chunkier sauce. You could also stir a spoonful of this through houmous or natural yoghurt for a delicious dip. 

So far we have eaten it with oven roasted cauliflower, on salads, in roast potatoes, on sourdough and in wraps!

• The dark green of the herbs is so appealling, packed with polyphenols, minerals, vitamins and fibre to feed our precious gut microbes. Adding lemon zest is another way to up the ante on the prebiotic front, and tastes delicious too!

I will be making lots of this delicious stuff over the coming weeks!

You can easily up the amount of chilli flakes or use a whole red chilli chopped instead, but as I am a chilli wimp, a wee sprinkling is enough for me.

So here is the recipe

Ingredients

• 1 packed cup flat leaf parsley
• 1 packed cup of wild garlic leaves
• 1/2 cup olive, rapeseed or extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 tsps dried oregano or 2 tablespoons fresh (optional)
• 1 tsp chilli flakes or 1 red chilli finely chopped
  
• zest of a lemon (optional)
• salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Finely chop the parsley and wild garlic and add to a bowl.
2. Add the oil, oregano and chilli.
3. Add the red wine vinegar, lemon zest and seasoning.
4. Transfer to a glass jar and keep in the fridge.

I love wild garlic season and this recipe is a brilliant way of preserving it for as long as you like, and adding a subtle garlic flavour to all your dishes!
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Use a good quality coarse natural salt, like everything else, using the best ingredients yields the best product, in terms of nutrition and flavour.

Salts all taste different, contain varying types and amounts of beneficial minerals, depending on where they are sourced.
I tend to use pink Himalyan rock salt for all my ferments, but its not as sustainable as sea salt, but then sea salt can contain plastic nanoparticles which isn't good for sealife or us!

So I opted for a traditionally harvested Atlantic sea salt called Sel de Guerande from Brittany, its a bit grey in colour due to the high amount of minerals it contains and it has a really good flavour. A study from 2018 showed that this was only one of 3 salts tested which didn't contain plastic nanoparticles.

Not sure if this is still the case, but it pays off to do a bit of research and buy the best you can. After all wild garlic is completely free so invest a bit in your salt!
So here is how you make it

Ingredients

• 1kg natural coarse salt, I used Sel de Guerande
• 2 tightly packed cups of wild garlic

Method

1. Simply blitz 100g of the salt with the wild garlic leaves in a food processor or blender, to a rough paste. Transfer to a large bowl and mix in the remainder of the salt.
2. Transfer to a large baking tray, lined with a silicone liner or greaseproof paper.
3. Dry in oven at around 80C/ 175F  for a few hours, then turn the oven right down, just leaving the pilot light on and leave to completely dry out overnight. It is helpful to move the salt around a bit on the tray to help it dry out evenly.
4. Transfer to jars.

This salt will keep indefinitely and makes a really nice foodie gift for someone!

I have been having the best fun this year, expanding my foraging repertoire, with my most knowlegeable friend Vicky, of The Little Foragers Kitchen! In fact we have been running some joint outdoor workshops, at Cadder Wharf, among the trees, enjoying the fresh air and learning all about natures amazing healing plants and how to use them in delicious and creative ways!
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So hawthorn ketchup is new to me, and my first attempt wasn't a great success! I had picked the berries when they weren't quite ripe enough, so took ages to break down and by the time I had blended and sieved it, there was hardly anything left!
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So not to be deterred I left it a few weeks, until the haw berries were much riper, and this time it turned out great! So the motto is, If at first you don't suceed, try, try and try again!!
Also Practice makes perfect!!
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So now I can share my recipe, and the good news is you can harvest haw berries throughout October, they are perfect for harvesting now.
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You can freeze the berries in 500g amounts, so you can make this delicious ketchup whenever you want.
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I have a stash of rosehips, elderberries, brambles, haw berries and sloe berries in the freezer to use throughout the year.
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So hawthorn is a wonderful plant, classed as an adaptagen, which supports the heart and circulation. The flowers and leaves are also edible, as well as the lovely berries in the autumn.
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Always be 100% sure of correct identification when you are collecting any wild berries, there are similar ones which are not edible and can make you rather ill. Look at the leaf shape as well as the berries, there are many plant apps which you can use to identify plants correctly.
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So onto the recipe, you can vary the flavour of the ketchup by adding different spices, chilli flakes, and garlic, or go down the warming spice route with allspice, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves, for a deliciously fruity, rich and intense ketchup, which is what I chose!
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This ketchup is delicious served with veggie burgers, veggie sausages, stirred into casseroles, blended with chickpeas and tahini for a delicious dip or mixed with natural yoghurt to serve with falafel. 
It tastes almost like HP sauce but a much healthier version!
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So here is the recipe
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Ingredients- makes around 350mls ketchup

• 500g hawthorn berries
• 300mls apple cider vinegar
• 300 mls water
• 150 to 175g brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger or 1 heaped tsp fresh finely chopped ginger
• 1/2 tsp of nutmeg
• pinch of ground cloves
• salt and pepper to taste

Method
1. Remove all the stalks from the haw berries and give them a wash.
2. Put the berries in a pan with the apple cider vinegar and water, bring to a gentle simmer and cook until
the berries start to soften and split. This can take from 30 minutes to nearer an hour if your berries are hard.
​You may need to top it up with hot water
3. Push the mixture through a sieve to remove all the stones and skins. Use a wooden spoon to really push it through. If your mixture looks dry then add extra boiling water and give it a good mix before you sieve it. You need around 300 to 350 mls.
4. Return the pulp to a clean pan and add the sugar, spices, salt and pepper.
5. Heat gently to dissolve the sugar, and then simmer gently for around 5 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
6. Transfer to a sterilised jar or bottle.*

To sterilise your bottle, wash it in hot soapy water, rinse it well then put in the oven at 140 C for around 15 minutes.
Alternatively put your bottles and jars through a hot cycle in the dishwasher.