Tis the season

[chickenfeet]

for fiddleheads. So, last night I roasted a free range organic chicken with butter garlic and thyme, added some roast potatoes and steamed the fiddleheads. A Marynissen Cabernet Franc 1999 was a very good accompaniment.

Talking of Marynissen, the good folks at 13th Street Winery tell me that after three years of very poor harvests due to severe frost damage the 2006 harvest in Niagara is shaping up to be a good one. There has been minimal frost damage and the growing season is 7-10 days ahead of normal so there's every chance for a long growing/ripening season, good yields and excellent quality. Let's hope so!

Comments

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Sounds delicious, but what's a fiddlehead?

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

They are a kind of edible fern the edible heads of which are coiled up like the twiddly bits on the end of a fiddle. They taste a bit like asparagus and have a very short season. They are one of the few things we have left that are truly a seasonal delicacy as they don't get imported year round from Kenya or Chile or Mexico like strawberries and asparagus.

[minx-minx.livejournal.com]

I love fiddleheads! We usually steam ours, then saute in a bit of butter and garlic to finish them.

[damiel.livejournal.com]

I think I've only seen them here once this season, and they didn't look too healthy. I should look for them again. I love them. I wish they were more versatile (or that I were more creative). I've tried them in risotto, but I think the comment above about garlic and butter is a good idea.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I've thought about using them in risotto but they do give off a rather unappetising coloured liquid.

[damiel.livejournal.com]

Yes. I added them to the risotto only after having steamed them slightly (which I guess eliminated some of the brownish effluent), and used a separate well-flavored broth as a base for cooking the rice. They'd be a good idea for a spring risotto, along with some fresh fava beans and fresh peas.

[okoshun.livejournal.com]

Ooh..I wonder if fiddleheads will still be around in 3 weeks?

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, out here, there aren't fiddleheads, and one of my other three hallmarks of spring (English peas) didn't successfully grow in any of the local farms because of too much rain in March.

But we did have the other two (morels and asparagus).

Sounds like a very yummy dinner. I like fiddleheads steamed and then sautéed with garlic. But I like almost any vegetable steamed and then sautéed with garlic...

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

If by fiddleheads you mean ferns, I wouldn't eat them if I were you.

I did my PhD on the chemical ecology of bracken - a particularly well-equipped fern, it's true - but even the "edible" ferns are pretty chuck full of toxins.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

The fiddlehead was subjected to fairly exhaustive analysis by the CDC after a handful of cases of food poisoning were reported in 1994. They couldn't identify an obvious cause but issued a recommendation that they be cooked for at least 10 minutes. All known cases of problems with fiddleheads came from very lightly cooked examples. It wouldn't surprise me if they do contain some sort of toxin to which some people are sensitive but I only eat them a couple of times per year and they've been consumed in quantity in the Maritimes since first European settlement and by aboriginal peoples time out of mind so I doubt the risk is very high. I'm sure I eat more dangerous things like potatoes and rhubarb, not to mention fresh water fish, with all the deadly stuff they contain.