Chickweed ✦

Mouron des oiseaux

What it is

Chickweed tastes startlingly of raw sweetcorn, and it can be told from everything it grows beside by a single line of fine hairs running along one side of the stem, switching sides at each pair of leaves. It is a cool-season plant: it germinates in autumn, mats through winter and is finished by the first real heat.

In the kitchen

Shear the mat with scissors rather than pulling it: pull and the roots come with the plant, and the grit comes with the roots. Serve it raw and dressed at the last second — heated, it collapses to almost nothing.

Goes with

Olive oil Lemon Egg Goat cheese Radish Walnut oil

In season alongside

Frisée Gernika pepper Komatsuna Lettuce Pak choi Salad burnet

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