Salsola

I am really catching up with all the recipes and ingredients that I have been playing about with for the past year.... I wanted to highlight this great ingredient salsola.  Little used in this country  - I heard all about from the Petersham Nurseries restaurant chef Skye Gyngell and when I found the seeds at the Real Seed Company I just had to grow and try this unusual herb? vegetable? 

Salsola soda is saltwort and is known as land seaweed or agretti in Italian. It has a flavour of something like samphire or seaweed with a salty tang and slight bitterness. In Italy you find it regularly in greengrocers in large piles of stalks with the roots still attached.  And because is has that seaweed taste it is of course popular in Japan.

You can eat the younger leaves raw in salad but I waited to see how the plant grew.  What you had were these amazing thick bushes of succulent green foliage.  I cut some fresh and decided to steam it and serve with some squid, scallops and cockles to intensify the taste of the sea.

 I ended up cooking much of the salsola in stir fry to add that briney tang.  A great vegetable to use and fun and original to grow!