Spring Clean Recipes: Cleavers

Nicholas Culpepper said of Cleavers: ‘It is a good remedy in the spring…to cleanse the blood and strengthen the liver…fitting it for that change of season that is coming’. A spring clean herb, to help move that stagnating lymph, to clean and spruce you up for the new growing year to come.

Cleavers and Wild Garlic Pesto

Ingredients:

• ½ cup cleavers leaves (stalks are too stringy, so remove the leaves from stalks)

• 1½  cup wild garlic leaves

• ½ cup parmesan cheese (freshly grated gives best flavour)*

• 1 cup organic extra virgin cold pressed olive oil

• ½ cup pine nuts (pistachio, almonds would also work)

• 2 lemons juiced

• 1 tsp salt, or to taste

• ¼ tsp black peppercorns, crushed

Directions:

• Place all the ingredients in a blender and blitz until the desired consistency is reached

• Place in a sterilised jar and keep in a refrigerator for up to a week

• Use as pasta sauce, drizzle on warm salads, as fish or chicken garnish

• * leave out if vegan

Cleavers, nettle, wild garlic and feta cheese frittata

Ingredients:

• 1 onion

• Healthy oils to fry – you can use any of: ghee, butter, beef dripping, goose fat, coconut oil

• 10 cherry tomatoes halved

• 25g cleavers leaves washed and chopped roughly (stalks are too stringy, so remove the leaves from stalks)

• 25g nettle leaves washed and chopped roughly (use gloves to handle or you will be stung!)

• 25g wild garlic leaves, washed and chopped

• 2 medium potatoes, chopped to bite size and boiled until soft

• 6 eggs

• 150g feta cheese (or more if you prefer), crumbled - you can use other types of cheese too, e.g. cheddar, mozzarella

• Salt, to taste

• Black peppercorns crushed, to taste

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 180C

• Butter an oven proof dish

• Mix all the eggs, add into it cheese, salt and pepper to taste

• Fry onion in healthy oil

• Once onion is soft, add cherry tomatoes and fry until soft

• Add cleavers, nettles and wild garlic until wilted

• Add potatoes and stir for a few seconds

• Line the buttered oven proof dish with the fried vegetables and leaves

• Pour over the egg and feta cheese mixture

• Place in oven for 30 minutes until cooked through

Cleavers Tonic Syrup

Ingredients:

• 100ml water

• 250g sugar

• 1 lemon, juiced

• 3-4 peppercorns crushed

• 2-3 peppermint or spearmint leaves (fresh)

• 10 sprigs of cleavers, washed and roughly chopped

Directions:

• Heat 100ml water, mix 1 cup of sugar until it is all melted to make a syrup

• Place in sterilised mason jar, let it cool down to room temperature

• Add lemon, peppercorns, mint leaves and cleavers

• Leave for a day to steep, leave longer if want a stronger flavour

• Sieve out the plant material, store in a sterilised swing-top bottle for up to a week in the refrigerator (for instructions on how to sterilise a bottle, please refer to any jamming/cordial making websites)

• To serve, mix 1-2 tablespoons of syrup with 250ml of sparkling water

• Drink on its own or mix with gin/vodka of choice

Notes:

• Can use fresh lemon balm leaves instead of mint

Foraging notes:

• Please forage responsibly, taking no more than 10% of any patch of plants/flowers/leaves/berries.

• Forage from area free from herb/pesticides, pollutants (e.g. heavy traffic), mindful of dog poos!

• There are poisonous and deadly plants including lookalikes, so never consume any plant unless 100% certain of what it is.