I finally got my hands on some fresh wild California Ramps, on sale at Whole Foods. And after my indulgent ramps photo shoot, the white truffle essence hovering in the air was making me woozy for a delicious ramps tasting. Since I was a ramps newbie I wanted to keep the flavors clean, crisp and simple.
Ramps and Shrooms: A Perfect Pair. I decided to add a bit of shiitake shrooms to my tasting recipe, ramps and shrooms go hand in hand. Come along for my ramps tasting experience and my simple recipe ahead…
How Do I Cook Ramps?
Ramps look a lot like scallions, but must be handled more delicately. Ramps have delicate wispy spring green leaves shooting out of the crisp white and purple root stems. I didn’t know exactly how to chop the ramps up for cooking. A few recipes I found online instructed to chop them up pretty harshly and add them to a saute dish for some all around flavor. But since I was doing a tasting I wanted as little chopping as possible. I wanted to really taste these ramps!
Here’s my ramp tasting process:
1. Clean the ramps. Pull off any dead or wilted layers around the bulb.
2. Chop off the rooted bulb. Just a tiny slice because a lot of the ramp flavor is in that tiny white bulbed end.
3. Do a 1 inch rule. Chop the ramp into about 1 inch strips starting with the white bulb. I liked keeping the white bulb slice and the purple stem slice separate so I could taste the differing flavors of the ramp.
4. That’s it for prep. Now onto the recipe:
Simple Wild Ramps Tasting
Here’s the ingredients:
5-6 small wild ramps, chopped as stated above.
1 Tbsp olive oil
5 shiitake mushrooms, cleaned and sliced thin.
3 Tbsp veggie broth
1 garlic clove
1/2 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
Prepare the ramps:
In a hot skillet, add the oil, veggie broth and garlic.
When liquid is sizzling, add mushrooms.
Saute for 1-2 minutes uncovered.
Add in a pinch of black pepper and the thick ends of the ramps (white bulbs and purple stems, leave out the green leaves thus far.)
Saute for another minute on med-high.
When the ingredients look just about perfect, add in the green ends of the ramps and cover pan for about 30 seconds. The steam from the pan should cook the ends very quickly.
Uncover and do a quick stir with your spoon to mesh all the flavors together.
Turn heat off.
Sprinkle a dash of salt and grind some fresh pepper on the dish-still in the pan.
Toss salt/pepper with the dish.
Plate in small servings dishes while still steamy hot.
The smell will be divine!
Serve with some crusty bread and small forks.
Let the ramp tasting begin.
I love ramps. My favorite is a ramps egg scramble.
Dan,
That’s a great idea. Since I don’t eat eggs I could imagine that ramps and a tofu scramble would be delicious! Yum. some fresh herbs and lots of black pepper. Maybe even a few shreds of vegan soy cheese. Awesome brunch.
Thanks for the idea.
Kathy
Beautifully photographed!
I had lunch at a place in nearby West Virginia today. They had a quiche with ramps and morels – both of which grow wild around here. I eat eggs, but the quiche also had bacon in it… so it wasn’t for me. Sigh.
Saw this great ramps quote on Restaurantgirl.com:
Q: A least favorite? And yes, you must pick one…
A: “The mixed mushroom ravioli with fried oyster mushrooms and aged provalone. It’s simple, it’s straightforward, people love it, but it annoys me. It annoys me because people aren’t eating ramps, which is all they should be eating right now. “
– Alex Guarnaschelli of Butter nyc
The best way to deal with ramps is to clean off the roots and slice the white stalk as thinly as possible. When you’re ready to cook them, saute the thinly sliced bottoms until tender then finish with the tops until wilted. Done properly the leaves should blow up like balloons before wilting.
Wow! That’s a great tip. I would love to see the ramp leaves blown up like balloons. I will try that next time. Although it sounds like it takes some practice. Such a delicate food.
Thanks for the tip,
Kathy
I live pretty close to ramp country but not really close enough that I was familiar with them when I grew up. Of course, I look forward to them now. I’m also just a little too far to drive to a traditional dinner in West Virginia this year but they sound interesting enough that I’d like to do it some year soon. There are dozens of them every year. The traditional setup is ramps, potatoes, corn bread, beans, ham and dessert. And Bluegrass.
They’re popular on restaurant menus, too. I’ve had ramp soup, ravioli with ramp sauce and ramp pizza this season. And I see a lot of pickled ramps. I think that’s a pretty common thing to do with the bulb. I had that on a salad yesterday and it was phenomenal.
Your photos are stunning.
I live in LA now, but grew up in West Virginia, where we looked forward to ramp season every spring. My mom cooked them with scrambled eggs or potatoes.
I was surprised a couple years ago when I discovered that they had become a “gourmet” item.
Just wrote an essay about ramps on my blog too.
ramps are so wildly delicious. my boyfriend's family grows them.