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Episode 06: Rampin' It Up!
144 Plays2 years ago
This week we have a guest! Mandy brings some class and brains to the conversation and we discuss RAMPS. All ramps all the time, it is our most cohesive convo yet!
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Scratch the Hog' with Mandy
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, hey, back with episode six of Scratch the Hog. Special guest today, Justin, who do you have there? I have my beautiful wife, Mandy, with us today. Mandy. Yeah. And so, you know, I want to start getting Mandy involved in this because she is the other half of Heifer and Hog.
Heifer and Hog Partnership Dynamics
00:00:25
Speaker
I'm the Heifer. And I'm the Hog.
00:00:29
Speaker
Beautiful. Lovely. Awesome. So this is actually going to be kind of a special episode, maybe a seasonal episode, a topic that's near and dear to all of us, something that we love. Maybe before we get into that, we can always just do the like, subscribe. We're on YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, and always welcoming feedback so you can message us on all those platforms or you can email us at scratch the hog.
00:01:01
Speaker
So, what's our topic today? What's our topic? What are we talking
Exploring Ramps: Wild Leeks and Their Habitat
00:01:05
Speaker
about? We are talking about ramps. Ramps. It is a quick, short season. These are only found in the wild. Can't really cultivate them. It's kind of tricky.
00:01:20
Speaker
And some people actually call them wild leaks too, regionally. So people often call them leaks. So these are the same. These are not like the big leaks that you find in the grocery store. Those are leaks, but these are actually called ramps. So what do you want to give a little background of what these are and where you find them?
00:01:41
Speaker
Yeah, so basically they grow a lot in the like eastern part, northeastern part of the US and they grow like in wooded areas around rivers and creeks. They really like sandy soil and they like shade a lot.
00:01:59
Speaker
And they start popping up around the beginning of April and then they go into the beginning of May. Some people say that the season is around two weeks, but we find around here it's more about like a month or so. So you have a little bit more room. It just depends on if you want to pick them when they're smaller or if you want to wait until the beginning of May to when they're much bigger.
Harvesting Ramps Responsibly
00:02:21
Speaker
Do you feel like there's a difference in flavor from when they're smaller to larger?
00:02:28
Speaker
Flavor, I don't know, but texture, yeah, for sure. Like when you pick the little guys, they're definitely more tender. I like to go later in the season and dig out some really mature ones for pickling with because they just stand up better in the canning process. And the leaves are bigger and you can, let's not forget about, you know, the leaves are an ingredient in and of themselves.
00:02:57
Speaker
Oh yeah. Yeah. We are very much, uh, like it's kind of a divide and conquer literally because we use believes for specific things and we use the stems and bulbs for specific things. Yep. So you guys have obviously got some ramps recently. What have you been, um, working on making?
00:03:16
Speaker
Yeah. So we picked about, uh, I would say maybe seven pounds of ramps. We didn't weigh them this year. We usually weigh them and we just forgot to this year, but yeah, it was, it was at least six pounds that we dug out. And, um, we did make a little instructional video that we were attached to this, um, regarding how to dig them out responsibly because this is a very hot button issue. A lot of people.
00:03:43
Speaker
say don't dig them, only take the leaves. And I kind of feel like that's mostly true. But if you have a really good spot where they are just super dense, it's okay to dig a few out here and there and give them more room to grow back. And because one of the main things that we like to do with them is pickle them.
Pickling and Preserving Ramps
00:04:08
Speaker
I really prefer using
00:04:11
Speaker
Like I said, the stems and the bulbs just hold up much better in the pickling and canning process. So like, this is a freshly canned jar here. This is like a sweet French pickle that I do. And it has like a sweet brine with a lot of sugar in it and a little bit of salt, fennel seeds, mustard seeds,
00:04:38
Speaker
Fenugreek gives it a really subtle maple-y flavor. They're fantastic on a charcuterie board or on a sandwich. I love pickled ramps. I just cut them up and put them on everything. Any sandwich, eggs, oh God, they're so good on everything. Yeah. So you mentioned, I want to kind of dig in because you mentioned that these things grow in big patches in the woods.
00:05:02
Speaker
people are pretty particular, like secretive about where they go, right? Like it's, it's, it's not like to the extent of truffle hunting, but it's like, uh, I have a spot and I'm only going to kind of allude to where it is. I'm not going to tell you where it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People always ask us like, Oh, where's your spot? Oh, you're like north. And like,
00:05:28
Speaker
Every time we go, like we never see any traces of people, other people picking. So that's why we're comfortable just picking like the bulbs, like digging up everything. Um, but like, if you're along a trail, like a really popular trail, and then you see some, that would be a situation where I would just trim a few of the leaves off and then leave the bulb. So they keep coming back.
00:05:53
Speaker
Yeah, the spot that we have access to is they grow so densely, you can't take a step without stepping on. This is why this is the one spot where we're comfortable digging some out, because they're actually getting to the point where they're choking each other out. So we're actually hoping that
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think like anything, you know, it's well, I think ramps got really popular. A lot of people have been making videos about them. I think Bon Appetit did a whole like ramp thing. Now they're in restaurants. So they definitely have
Popularity and Sustainability of Ramps
00:06:30
Speaker
been getting traction. But like for years,
00:06:33
Speaker
Um, you know where I live, uh, if there's always been like leak festivals and at their wild ramps fest like that's and there's people are making leak dip and leak pizza and all these leak things like They just go out they dig them up and they come back and it's like no problem with you know Them repopulating because the demand wasn't as high uh as it is now so
00:06:56
Speaker
I will agree. I have three rant videos online and some people did call me out on like, oh, how dare you like pull them out of, you know, you should only cut them. And it's like, well, then you only get the leaves and like the best part is like one of the best parts is the, you know, ball the oniony part. Um, and there's so much more stuff you can do to it. So, um,
00:07:17
Speaker
You can you can cut them, you know, as close as you can. But, you know, you know, just just be mindful and respectful, I guess, of where you are and don't tell anybody where your location is. So more people take them. And if you just, you know, dig up a little bit from each patch and pick up the whole patch, it's still an opportunity to continue to regenerate and to spread out. So it just depends on
00:07:43
Speaker
like the size of the patch and how much you're taking, but I've read that if you take about a quarter of each patch, that's still enough for them to continue to keep growing.
00:07:56
Speaker
Nice. Yeah. And I'm sure you didn't even, you didn't even touch a quarter of it. It sounds like you have a pretty nice plush area. Nice. Yeah. Cool. So let's talk about those pickles a little bit. So, um, I love all things pickled. I think pickled ramps are really good. Uh, and you, do you typically do the French, um, like this French brine or is this a new type? Do you like every season, do you do a different pickle? Yeah. I snagged this recipe off of,
00:08:22
Speaker
Food52 actually, and I tried it a few years ago and just fell in love with it. So that's kind of my go-to for just ramps in a jar. But I also do ramp dilly beans that a lot of people
00:08:38
Speaker
a lot of our friends request. They're so good. Like can't even describe how good they are. Yeah. And for those I just do, I just followed like a classic dill pickle recipe, but I replaced the cucumbers with green beans and ramp and replaced the garlic with ramps. And then I kind of throw in more ramps than it called garlic because they're delicious. Why wouldn't you?
00:09:04
Speaker
So yeah, the ratio on that I would say is like two part green bean to one part ramp. And the brine is just a classic dill pickle brine. Yeah, we should actually, so a lot of people probably haven't even had ramps or leaks. They're interesting because they're oniony and garlicky. Like they're kind, they're not, they're not, it doesn't taste like a full onion and it doesn't taste like garlic. It's something in between and they're really, really lovely little things. Yeah, for sure.
Creative Ramp Recipes and Experiments
00:09:33
Speaker
I did a, uh, spicy ramp pickle with like a bunch of, um, Szechuan and pink peppercorns and stuff. And that was pretty good too. Like spicy ramps, you know, dried chili. I think you and I talked about this last year cause you were on the big chili crisp kick. I left chili crispy. I made ramp chili crisp last year. It is. How'd you do that? Did you, did you dehydrate the ramps first?
00:10:00
Speaker
No, I just followed, um, a pretty basic chili recipe, but replaced. I think they have using scallions that you fry in the oil. Oh, so you fried the ramps. Oh shit. It was wild. It was so wild. You need to play around with. Yeah. So I'm going to have to make another jar of that this year with
00:10:23
Speaker
the last little bit of these ramps that we have left for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's such a short, uh, season that it makes you like make, make a bunch of stuff that you can enjoy and prepare it in a way that you can enjoy it for a long time and you want to like use the entirety. So, um, you know,
00:10:45
Speaker
You pickling so that's you're gonna do some pickle jars and give out the people and you're gonna have some that you'll crack open in a few months if you can contain yourselves but then there's like more fresh preparations with just the ramps right like what kind of other stuff are you guys doing.
00:11:00
Speaker
uh we're doing ramp pesto um we made a potato and ramp soup using um like blending up the leaves uh you know sauteing the bulb so it's a has like a nice bright green uh appearance to it which is and the flavor was really really nice um what else have we made you made yeah i made
00:11:24
Speaker
Do you know if I say like a strata, you know what I'm talking about? Like an egg strata. It's basically a breakfast casserole. But yeah, gotcha. Strata is a bougie name for it. Yeah. So I had, we had like some leftover bread bits and pieces, cube those up, whisk up some eggs and some cream and oh, and we had some ham leftover from something to cube up that ham. You mix all that together. And then I just had like a huge,
00:11:54
Speaker
bundle of ramp leaves that I just like did a chiffonade on and then kind of toss that in the eggy bready ham mixture, bake that in the oven.
00:12:04
Speaker
So, so rampy. Like you are going to stink all day for eat if you eat this for breakfast, but it's worth it. So gotcha. So it's almost like a like pseudo breakfast casserole pudding kind of thing. Yeah. Like it's very bread pudding, essentially. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Nice.
Cooking Techniques with Ramps
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah. She also made a artichoke spinach and ramp dip. Yes. For friends that we had come over last week and it was
00:12:33
Speaker
Insanely good got devoured. Well, yeah, did he have you guys talked about his new toy that he bought recently? Your
00:12:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. So yeah, my brother has been doing wood. He has like original uni and it's a wood pellet one. And he's been, he actually just upgraded it to the propane dome. He was like,
00:13:05
Speaker
Well, he's had the uni wood pellet thing and it's a little finicky, you know, you got to always in your sometimes it gets smoky, you got to let burn off, whatever, whatever. And he's been like, looking at the dome, looked at the dome, looked at the dome forever. And he just ordered it this week. And I was like, Oh, shit, this thing, but
00:13:23
Speaker
They make such good things and like not even just pizzas, you know, putting cast iron, vegetables and stuff like that. That's where I'm going with this. The stuff you guys were doing looks so good. We cooked this ramp spinach artichoke dip in the rock box. So it was like super bubbly and
00:13:42
Speaker
Like I don't want to use really nice and brown on top. It was amazing. Yeah. Did you use the entire ramp for that? Like the leaves all the way down to the ball? Just the greens. So it's almost like instead of all spinach, it was a mix of spinach and ramp leaves. Yeah, exactly. Because I took a handful of baby spinach. I took a handful of chopped up ramp leaves. I just did a super quick saute on the stove to wilt them a little bit to give them a head start.
00:14:11
Speaker
mix them up with the cream cheese, the chopped up artichokes and the grated cheese and just like press that in a little gratin pan. And then I laid just slices of Swiss cheese on top to get it like a nice gooey. Well, I thought I was going to get a cheese pull, but then it gets so brown and crispy in the rock box. It was more of like a cheese brulee that I would actually craft. I literally was kind of...
00:14:40
Speaker
Jesus. Cheese brulee. Oh God. Heard it first here. Scratch the hog. Cheese brulee. Yeah. I gotta fan myself. I gotta fan myself there. Cheese brulee. It was fantastic. I'm definitely going to make it again.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yes, you should. That is super clever and creative because it's something that's like, like, okay, Spanish art, art extract dip. It's good. People like it. It's super ubiquitous. Like it's everywhere. But to think like ramp leaves, I don't know. They kind of look like spinach. Let's make a dip. Oh, like that's fun. That's like really fun.
00:15:17
Speaker
That's when cooking's fun because you've obviously never made that before and you're like, this should work. And then it came out freaking awesome because you invented cheese brulee, first of all, and you got to use a new piece of equipment, which those things are so much fun to use. And the pizzas coming out of there are unbelievable home pizzas. They're so good.
00:15:42
Speaker
We're actually making pizza tonight. Uh, and I plan on making a ramp pizza, just if you've done it yet.
Foraging Secrets and Safety Tips
00:15:49
Speaker
Yeah. So what do you think? Like what is the ramp pizza going to be? What are your, uh, has it right now? I'm just thinking soft ramps and cheese, but, uh,
00:16:00
Speaker
I don't know. We're going to discuss a little bit more and see what we can do. I feel like the best way to utilize them so that you get a little bit of rampiness in all the pizzas is to make a very simple ramp pizza sauce where you are just taking your whole San Marzano's or plum tomatoes, whatever you like, and crushing them into a pot and finally chopping up some ramp leaves.
00:16:27
Speaker
and just throwing them in there or chop up the ball. I'll pay them then throw the sauce in. Yeah. Or a little bit of both. Yeah. Yeah. Or even, even that like pesto ramp, pesto pizza, like a, like a pesto, pesto in the fridge right now. So yeah, I mean, I made six dough balls so we can make six different ramp pizzas.
00:16:51
Speaker
And our one friend that's coming over is vegan, so it's a perfect opportunity. Oh, except for Pesta. Pesta with cheese in it. Well, she's kind of like flexitarian. Yeah, no, she's not like, if you serve me something with a slice of cheese, I'm going to freak out vegan. It's more of just like, I seriously am scaling back my animal product consumption. Yeah, sure.
00:17:20
Speaker
I, man, I'm just thinking about how I need to make pickled ramps right now so I can enjoy them.
00:17:25
Speaker
throughout the rest of the year. And by rest of the year, I mean, I'll probably eat all of them in like six weeks. Did you go? Did you go picking yet? So my my dad has a hefty location and he got some. So I need to get a hold of him to go out because he doesn't even I don't even know where it is. To be honest, he doesn't tell me like like put a black bag over your head and drive you to the spot. Like tranquilizes me, throws me in the back of the truck and then
00:17:54
Speaker
I wake up like my pants around my ankles. It's a whole thing. I'm just kidding. Jesus. Yeah, I need to get a hold of him because I think he he actually did a smoked
00:18:17
Speaker
He built a like a smoke house at his house and he smoked his cream cheese and then did like a smoked ramp leak dip or smoke ramp dip. I'm not sure how it turned out actually, but it might be good. I don't know. So he cold smokes in that? Yeah, I think you can do both. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. That sounds really good.
00:18:41
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you have to be able to cold smoke cream cheese else you just have like, yeah, it just melts. Nothing left. On the bottom of the smoker.
00:18:53
Speaker
Um, yeah, yeah, I do need to, I'll text them later today. Um, I didn't get to catch up with them yesterday because I do want to get a pile of, um, uh, because I love making pesto. Um, I've made my pesto with, um, almonds too. And I thought that worked really well. You don't have to use, you know, when you make any, any nut will really work. You don't have to just use pine nuts when you make pesto. And pine nuts are so expensive.
00:19:23
Speaker
They're really expensive right now is actually made with walnuts because I was gonna say walnuts would be perfect too. They're great. We recently went to the Delalo Italian Market in Jeanette and they are selling whole
00:19:36
Speaker
or not hold it. Walnut has the nice big bits for $1.99 a pound all the time. So we just load up on walnuts. It's like an unreal price for walnuts. I've never seen walnuts in that price before. Yeah. So we have a ton of walnuts right now, and we have a ton of ramps. So walnut ramp pesto was what was happening.
00:19:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's cool. That's, you know, walnuts are way more like an earthy flavor than a pine nut. And it seems like it would work, you know, really well with like the earthy sort of rampy thing going on. They're also super fatty. Like they would say they're like meatier than I feel other nuts. So you can really like, I mean, yeah.
00:20:19
Speaker
You can add oil after you make your pesto. You can add more oil to it in a pan and make it saucier, but you can also leave it really thick and use it as like a spread on a sandwich, which is fantastic. Yeah. It almost has that same fattiness as pine nuts. Yeah. But they're hardier. Yeah.
00:20:37
Speaker
Yeah. And that's good because I mean, when you think pesto, basil, basil is like it wilts when you look at it, you know, you go, oh, it's so fragile and the pine nut is really fragile. But like a ramp like this is like a very sturdy, intense, like pow flavor. It's woodier. It's you know, that that leaf is so much thicker in, you know, in texture than basil. So yeah, just like
00:21:04
Speaker
Hardy nuts, you know, oh, that's a good one. Hardy nuts. Hardy nuts trademark dance. Cheese brulee. Hardy nuts is great. I'm going to write that down. I wanted to say something about, you know, you were saying you can pickle a whole bunch of ramps and the
00:21:33
Speaker
have to keep yourself from popping all open and feeding them all at once. But I'll tell you what, when you want to put together a super fancy charcuterie board during the holidays and you can pop open some really sweet, nice ramps that have just been sitting in that brine for six months, people get really like, what are those? It's a great conversation starter.
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah. Let me tell you about all of my ramp knowledge. How much time do you have? Exactly. See these ramps? I pick these with my bare hands. I forage through these. Yeah, exactly. It's a great conversation starter. It's also just really fun to have something. I'm trying to think of the other thing that we always do this with, but I think it's really fun to have something that
00:22:20
Speaker
you know, is springtime seasonal in the dead of winter when you're just like sick of butternut squash everything all the time. Yeah, you know, it's like a nice little break. Hey, remember spring. You're like, it's coming soon. We'll be picking these. Yeah.
00:22:38
Speaker
I think it's neat too. It's kind of an easy thing to kind of get into foraging. I wouldn't recommend people just going out and picking mushrooms. You'll probably die or get really sick if you don't know what you're doing. But if you know what ramps are, they're pretty obvious to locate because they have two leaves and they grow up in these big patches.
00:23:02
Speaker
The only thing that looks like them is Lily of the Valley, which is outrageously poisonous. Make sure it doesn't have little white flowers. Typically Lily of the Valley is growing next to somebody's house though. So if you think you see ramps next to somebody's house, you're probably wrong. And also too, one is a bit like garlic. Yeah. If you pick them and it is not punching you in the face with that garlic onion scent, put it down. It's not to eat. Don't touch it.
00:23:28
Speaker
Yeah. To be clear, I am not advocating that you all go out and start eating whatever you find in the woods that, you know, make sure you know what you're looking for. Do your research first. And I highly recommend like if you are interested in mushroom hunting, like join a mushroom ID group. Like there's tons of online Facebook and online and
00:23:46
Speaker
lots of people who have dedicated way too much time to educating themselves are happy to share their knowledge with you. Yes, exactly. There's not to pivot, but something I've been thinking about, you can actually grow and cultivate your own mushrooms kind of in your house. Like they have like the mushroom, sterile mushroom bedding that is inoculized and
00:24:09
Speaker
You can even make it yourself. That might be an interesting thing to experiment with. I've been thinking about it after I get more of my house done because I have a big basement to do stuff with. I think I'm definitely going to do a grow house. Not a grow house. It sounds like I'm growing pot. I'm not growing pot. I want to start a lot of my
00:24:33
Speaker
I have big plans next year to have like big garden beds. And I want to start a bunch of stuff, like specifically heirloom tomatoes from seeds. Because it's hard to find those plants like in all the varietals. So I'm going to try and do a setup in my basement doing that. Sorry, what were you gonna say? Funny as that you've grown mushrooms. Yeah, it's great that you talked about mushrooms, because
00:24:58
Speaker
My brother and sister-in-law bought us a mushroom log for Christmas this year. So it is currently in our backyard doing its thing. No mushrooms yet, but I mean, it's just the sun has literally just come out in Pittsburgh, like the last three days. So yeah, it's been a shitty a couple of days or a couple of weeks. Oh, cool. What kind of mushrooms are going to grow out of it? Oyster.
00:25:22
Speaker
which we're kind of like, both mushrooms were like one of the foods that both of us were kind of really like meh about for a long time. And we're kind of just starting to come around to them. And oyster mushrooms are one that we both like. Yeah. Yeah. They're nice and meaty. They have a great flavor. They cook up really, really well. The mushroom preparation, I feel the same way.
00:25:46
Speaker
You know, I don't like slimy, gross mushrooms, but mushrooms don't do anything for me. But my God, like if you get a good mushroom dish, it is so good. Oftentimes they're super shitty. They're super shitty. I realized like, probably like when I was 30.
00:26:05
Speaker
It's not that I don't like mushrooms, it's that I don't like crappy mushrooms. Right. Yeah. It's like an old portobello that has their ribs on it and it's just like gross and it's like anytime I go to a salad bar and they have raw sliced mushrooms.
00:26:20
Speaker
Oh, who does why? It's like eating styrofoam. Yeah, sponges. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, but like my sister does that too. Whenever she makes this, I'm calling out my sister. I will tell her this too. And she makes a darn good salad. She does. But then she'll throw in like raw sliced mushrooms. And I think I've told her about it before. I'm just like,
00:26:45
Speaker
Like, why why do you have to go ahead and throw these in? Put them in a little container on the side for the weirdos who want that. Just put them in a container and throw them in the. She's probably going to listen to this and be like, how could you say this? Yeah, I'll take her ahead of time and give her a heads up, like, hey, I'm going to be I'm going to be bashing you in your place mushroom. Roasted you on this. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:12
Speaker
Nice. So I guess you're going to make some pizzas today. There's going to be ramps involved. You've pickled, you pestoed, you artichoke dipped. What else have you? Well, I found a new little recipe this year that I wanted to play around with. Here's a close up. This is fennel ramp jam with some mustard seeds in it.
00:27:37
Speaker
Nice. I was going to ask about jam. Like if you could, like a pepper jelly, if you somehow worked ramps into that. So that's fennel and ramp jam. Fennel. Yeah. We had bought a fennel bulb and used like the meteor bulbier part of it for just roasting in the oven. But then you have the stalks left over and the stalks are like a little bit
00:28:05
Speaker
fussier to work with. They're hard to roast because they're fibrous and thin. It's almost like celery stalks. Right. Yeah. So I had kind of been saving them in the fridge to do this little experiment with when we finally had time to go get the ramps. Because this recipe that I found specifically called for the fennel stalks, not the bulb, which is unusual. Yeah. So this is chopped up
00:28:32
Speaker
ramp bulbs, chopped up fennel stalks, um, a lot of sugar and water and a little bit of vinegar or no, I'm sorry, not vinegar, lemon juice. It's actually, it's very citrusy because you put lemon juice and lemon zest in it. And then I just love
00:28:53
Speaker
Mustard seeds in a savory jam so the recipe didn't call for but I threw in a heavy handful of mustard seeds and then canned them up so was there like There's either pectin or what oh, it's just the amount of sugar keep boiling it down and I think it pulls the pectin out of the Fennel
Innovative Culinary Uses for Ramps
00:29:13
Speaker
star. Yeah, and then yeah, there's like I said, there's a lot of sugar in it that eventually just cooks down into like a syrup You can see it's a pretty loose jam
00:29:21
Speaker
Like it's not totally set. It's more of a spoonable. Did you try that already? I tried it before I canned it, but I have a feeling it's going to be a little bit better now that it's been sitting in the jar for a week. It gave the mustard seeds more time to plump up.
00:29:38
Speaker
and everything getting nice and soft. So yeah, that'll, I don't know, we might, you know what, we could crack this guy open and do this on a pizza tonight. Oh, drizz. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, actually that would be nice also on a charcuterie or like, you know, if in the, in lieu of like a honey, like a spicy honey, now you have this rampy jam. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great idea. I specifically, I made four of these little mini jars like this and these are like,
00:30:06
Speaker
the most perfect size jar when you're doing a charcuterie board because you just Crack it open put it right on the board. It's just the right size and I love doing my different like savory jams in those and then having them on charcuterie boards all year and
00:30:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's nice. Then you have to fuss with a small container and then throw away what's in the container, try and put it back in the jar. You just put the lid on and throw it back in the fridge. Exactly. Yes. At the end of summer, I always do tons of different pepper and mustard jams in these little jars and then have them all through the winter for charcuterie boards and sandwiches and things. I want to try one of our
00:30:50
Speaker
places that we all like to eat was Morsilla. Um, and they had a, they have like a violet mustard that they put on their board, actually maybe cure did it. Um, when you would get their, uh, charcuterie board and it was really good and interesting. And I, I, it's something that I've always wanted to figure out how to, um, re-engineer like a violet. Cooking the violets, but we do, we actually,
00:31:17
Speaker
What's really interesting is that this spot that we go to for the ramps, there's loads of violets growing at the same time. They're the only spots where I've seen yellow violets. There's purple, white, and yellow violets that pop up in this spot. It's amazing. Which is funny that they're still called violets, even though they're white and yellow. Right, but they're beautiful. When we were picking the ramps, I was also picking a bunch of those because we had a
00:31:42
Speaker
We do these like little potluck lunches at my office every time it's somebody's birthday and we had two back to back birthdays. So we were, I said I was going to make like a special springtime cocktail and I used these multicolored violets and mint leaves to make ice cubes. I made like pretty floral ice cubes with them. And as they melt, you get different flavors, you know? You get like a little hint of the mint, but really the violets kind of just float to the top of your drink and it's just cute. Nice.
00:32:11
Speaker
So yes, we've done things with edible violets, but not cooking with them personally. My favorite, uh, I'm not a huge chocolate person as you know, from a previous episode where I, you know, got yelled at. I want to back you up a little bit here. I love chocolate, but chocolate ice cream, I kind of have to be in the mood for it can be a little, it's a little, if it's not like
00:32:36
Speaker
like amazing, like the best quality chocolate, then it just tastes overly sweet and it makes me really thirsty. How did I surround myself with people who
00:32:45
Speaker
I like chocolate inclusions. I'm not, I'm not saying I don't like chocolate ice cream. I'm saying that it has to be done well to be enjoyable. For me, like I love just like any type of chocolate ice cream. It could be Breyer's chocolate ice cream. I will still eat that shit. Like I'm all about chocolate ice cream. It makes me so thirsty that I'm like miserable afterwards. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, but one of my favorites, yeah, I,
00:33:14
Speaker
Don't like chocolate ice cream, but I like dark chocolate, like high quality dark chocolate candy bars. They're so good. And one of the best at the company I worked at many, many like first place I worked at this confection company that my favorite chocolate bar they made was a candied violet dark chocolate bar. And oh, my God, it's so good. It was so good.
00:33:38
Speaker
Wow. That's interesting. It was just a dark chocolate bar with candied violet inclusions in it, and that was it. It just worked so well. I would definitely try that, but I also get a little about violet food, like candies, because do you know what chowards are? It's like an ant. No. It's like a vintage candy.
00:34:03
Speaker
If you go to the Grandpa Joe's or a penny candy store, they already have it at the register. They come in a little squarish roll. We were at one of these shops and I was like, oh, violet candy. I'm thinking it's going to taste like lavender. I love the taste of lavender. I bought them. I cannot express how much they taste like the inside of your grandmother's purse.
00:34:29
Speaker
Okay. No, this, this doesn't taste like that at all. And I'm really, I'm really like, um, like a lot of the flower floral stuff I'm really hesitant on. Like, you know, people have like the soapy thing with cilantro, like rose, uh, rose flavored stuff gets real, like I'm washing my hands and my mouth kind of feeling. I have the same thing. I have like, I've tried and like rosewater.
00:34:55
Speaker
For instance, the smallest amount of rose water gets soapy in my mouth. I love Middle Eastern food. It's one of my favorite, but the desserts, I kind of tread lightly because they really love the rose water and it, again, tastes like the inside of grandma's purse to me. No, thank you. Did your grandma carry a lot of soap around in her purse? Yes.
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah, no, I love cilantro, but it doesn't get the soapy thing. But yeah, rose for me is something I usually steer clear of. If it's really light, I like it, but it's a very steep cliff. But yeah, candy violet, so love it. I would try it. Definitely. But yeah, stay away from the chowards.
00:35:44
Speaker
Okay. All right. Cause I have the same thing with rows that you have and these were that. Okay. For sure. Yeah. Okay. So be, um, I don't know anything. Any other, uh, uh, ramp, um, nuggets that you want to share?
00:36:04
Speaker
Yeah, so I've been playing around with dehydrating. And I do it every year that we pick ramps just to, you know, in other ways to preserve them. So I'll dehydrate the leaves and I'll crush them into making a powder. So that way, you know, if I want to add like
00:36:24
Speaker
a little burst of flavor to chili or to soups, stocks, whatever. You can bake with it. Yeah, you can bake with it. So it makes really wonderful biscuits. Like we've made bagels before with ramp powder. Oh, yeah. And they are green bagels. Nice green bagel. And they had this just fantastic. It was like a subtle, like not a sharp ramp flavor, but a very thorough, subtle, like savoriness. Yeah.
00:36:53
Speaker
And, you know, it's one of the things I love to do. And the way that I do it is like we don't have a dehydrator. So I set our oven to its lowest temperature, which for our oven, it's 170 degrees. And then I'll just let it ride out for like an hour. So check on it just until they're really nice and brittle. Well, you put it on like a rack or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have we have the.
00:37:20
Speaker
gridded cooling racks that fit right into the, what's it called, a half sheet? Yeah. Just so it gets like good airflow underneath as well. Yeah. Works great. Yeah. Yeah. It works really, really well.
00:37:34
Speaker
So yeah just until they get nice and brittle and then whenever I'm before I'm ready to actually blitz them up I just put them in a plastic bag and roll the air out and then I will just grind them up in a spice grinder until it becomes a nice powder. But one thing that I'm doing different this year is like I'm still drying out the leaves but I'm also experimenting with drying out the bulbs as well.
00:37:57
Speaker
And that was a little bit trickier just because there's more moisture in the bulb. So it took a lot longer, maybe like two to three hours to actually dry them up.
00:38:08
Speaker
And so once they were dry, did you, did you cut, sorry, did you cut the bulbs or were you putting them in the hole or were you sort of taking them apart? Like, how did you handle the bulbs in the oven? So I just cut the bulbs off. Um, and then I wrote, I dried out the leaves separately from the bulbs since the leaves dry out a lot. Did you like, did you slice the bulbs in half when you were dehydrating them or you just put them in?
00:38:34
Speaker
These were the smaller bulbs because we kind of reserved all the larger ones for my little pickling experiments. And so it took a lot longer for the bulbs to dry out. But once they were dry, I blitzed them up and I like taste it and they actually like got a little bit sweeter. And I'm not sure if it's because of the oven temp and the amount of time that they needed to dry out as to if you were to do it in a dehydrator, if it would preserve that flavor a lot more.
00:39:02
Speaker
So the texture of it is almost like a granulated garlic. It's a little bit sticky. Yeah, like powdered garlic. So it's interesting. Not sure if I would do it again in an oven. I would probably try to find a dehydrator or a dehydrator from somebody and try it out that way. I tasted, he actually just made this yesterday. So I tasted this last night and I said to him, the best way I can describe the flavor is a less artificial tasting Funyan.
00:39:33
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. Wow. Okay. God, I actually, I know what you're saying. Like that's a weird statement, but I know that what you're saying. I don't know how to describe it because Funyuns have that like sweet savory thing going on. And so did this, but without all the, um, multidextrin flavor that comes with a Funyun. Yeah. Gotcha. Oh, interesting. Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.
00:39:59
Speaker
Um, yeah, I've, uh, that's a great way to keep, uh, ramps happening all year is, you know, to hydrate the leaves and have some powder to add and just experiment with them. Yeah. I thought the, um, bagels that you guys made that was super clever. Um, they were so good. We have to do them. What if, what if you did, what if you did, um, the ramp bagels with.
00:40:26
Speaker
the dehydrated ramp bulbs on top, like an onion bagel or something. Like make a ramp everything. Like ramp everything, meaning everything is ramps bagel. I'd say we won't be kissing anyone. We'll have to quarantine. Our mouths. I mean, yeah.
00:40:50
Speaker
I think that'd be really, really good. Yeah, definitely worth trying for sure. And I've thought about blitzing up the leaves with the dehydrated leaves with some coarse sea salt just to make like a nice seasoning salt. But if you throw the bulbs in, I think that's a really smart idea. Yeah.
00:41:09
Speaker
Oh, I actually thought of another thing that I was using up last year's powder knowing that he was about to make new powder. So I was like just trying to get last year's powder like used up. So I made like a pretty big batch of like a ramp. I call it like rampy ranch, but it's essentially just like a buttermilk dressing with ramp powder in it. Oh, so it's like a Greek goddess ranch. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Just a really simple.
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah, buttermilk and yogurt based dressing and just dump a ton of the ramp powder in it. It tastes a little bit like ranch, but not quite as our ranch, ranch, ranch, ranch.
00:41:52
Speaker
There's so much you can do. It's so creative where it's like, okay, this is a thing. It's similar to this other item in a recipe. Swap them out. It just starts exploring. It's fun. That's cool. That's super cool. Yeah. It's a great process. Any recipe you have that calls for garlic, leek, scallions, you just have to think about which part of
00:42:16
Speaker
the garlic, the leek, or the scallion is this recipe calling for and which part of the ramp can I substitute, you know? Yeah, that's cool.
00:42:26
Speaker
It's great journey. Great. Yeah. Oh, so there's another, um, I think it's even a shorter season later, uh, in the year and I'm kind of bummed out because they don't really grow up here, but they're down in your neck of the woods. It's the Papa, you know, a native, um, sort of almost like a banana eat tropical mango fruit that, you know, is in the Northeast. Um,
00:42:52
Speaker
Like something that you wouldn't, that's another episode, but yeah, the flavor of it does not scream Pennsylvania, but here they grow. Yeah. Yeah. And they're like with the banana texture. Um, that should be another conversation for sure. Yeah. That'll be our September special episode. Yeah. Yeah. Stay tuned for the Papa.
00:43:15
Speaker
when we go by the pom poms that we don't forage for we, I, I happened upon a guy on Facebook market that just has a bunch of them growing on his property and Allison Park and you just roll up to his house with cash and he sells you a bag of pop offs for like five bucks and I'll give you like five pounds pop minimum, your minimum order must be five pounds. He will not sell you less than five pounds.
00:43:40
Speaker
That's how much he has growing on his property. He's like, please take them. They don't last very long. You got to, you got to move on. Cause we end up bringing them home and like sort of taking them apart and freezing all the guts. Basically. I think we should, we should put this on pause on pause on pause. Yeah. For another time. Good idea. Don't want to spoil too much.
00:44:06
Speaker
Yeah. Um, all right. Well, I guess, uh, any more ramp stuff or we want to, we want to call it for the, um, I don't know. Like, you know, we're still going to experiment, play around. And you know, if we discover something new and fun, we'll definitely share it on Instagram for sure. Those pizzas show me what you do with the pizzas. We'll definitely take some pictures of the pizzas tonight. But, um, I mean, I know you haven't,
00:44:33
Speaker
you have not acquired your, your ramp haul yet this year, but like what's kind of on your docket for things you want to do with them. Cause I feel like we've just been rattling off. I think you guys gave me a bunch of, uh, why I always like to make the powder, um, you know, to, to add, you know, to, to stuff all year long. Um, I'll definitely do.
00:44:55
Speaker
Um, a few types of, um, pasta dishes. So with the pesto I've also, I told you, Justin, I was working on this, uh, idea a little bit more. Um, I have like, I don't even want to talk about it too much, but I have like, um, this, uh, seasoning mix that, um, is so good, uh, to make like a quick pasta recipe. So think about like.
00:45:23
Speaker
high-end mac and cheese, but super flavorful. Things like mushroom powder and stuff is in it, and it gets really this savory kind of pasta dish. So as we're talking about powdered ramps, I could see trying to do a powdered ramp pasta thing.
00:45:45
Speaker
Um, ramp butter is nice to, you know, make, uh, stakes with, to be, you know, I love like basting sticks and ramp butter. Um, there's a great, there's a great ramp butter video that our friend Zach made. I should, I need to get my, I need to get my views this year. I'm not in the number one ramp butter video on YouTube. Like I was last year.
00:46:10
Speaker
Well, I wanted to mention earlier, if anybody wants to come at you about digging up ramps from that video, tell them where you got the ramps from. You guys gave me those ramps, yeah. That's right. Yeah, we did. So they can come after me. Yeah, no, that's fine. I mean, people like to just bitch about everything. It's true. Yeah, anyway. So I just love pickling things. I love, love, love pickling things because it's just like,
00:46:42
Speaker
a cool way to experiment with different types of pickle brines, whether they're sweet or dilly or spicy. You don't have to be super precise, like when you're making that stuff, like with the added flavor, like you can really, really put anything in them. But it's such a great way to add like an acidic
00:47:07
Speaker
a salty, pickley thing to almost anything that you're making and it just totally changes the food. That's fun. I'm going to rack my brain a little bit and see if I can think of something. I like this idea of making a dish where you're using all the different parts of ramps in a different way. That's neat, using it to make a dip.
00:47:36
Speaker
you know, the idea of the bagel where you're making the bagel with the powder, but then using the dehydrated bottoms for the top. That's that's cool. Right. And then, like, what if you slice that and then put some kind of ramp schmear on it? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You're you're you're smoked to ramp cream cheese on the exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's what to do, baby. Bob, Bob, the tip that goes down, Bob, the tip.
00:48:06
Speaker
party nuts to cheese brulee. Cheese brulee. Cool. All right. Well, Hey, um, this was great. Mandy, always a pleasure. Glad we got, uh, all of your, um, you know, ramp insight. I feel like that really made this episode so much better than just Justin and I.
00:48:31
Speaker
Uh, you know, 90 minutes, but, um, and also, Hey, we pretty much stayed on one topic for the entirety of this. We'll see. We'll see if listeners appreciate that. And that's fine. We can't avoid those. Those cannot be avoided. Yeah. Full circle.
00:48:55
Speaker
All right, y'all. It was a pledge. Hope you enjoy the rest of your day. And like I said, YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, and get at us. If you like ramps or wild leaks and you have ideas or questions, slip into our DMs or email us at scratchthehog at gmail.com. All right. We want to hear all of your favorite ramp recipes. And you don't have to tell us where your spot is.
00:49:24
Speaker
Share pictures. Tell us what else you're foraging for this spring other than mushrooms, ramps, or wild violets. What else is out there that we're not digging out of the ground that we should? Yeah. That could be a whole cool episode of just foraging. Cool. Yeah. All right, y'all. This is great. Awesome. Appreciate it. Take care. Good seeing you back. You guys as well. Bye. Bye.