Mountain sorrel ✦

Oseille des Alpes

What it is

It is one of the very few plants the Inuit gather in quantity: qunguliit is eaten fresh through the short summer and packed into seal oil to hold its vitamin C through the winter. The leaves are round and thick as felt, and the sourness lands at the front of the tongue and then vanishes rather than lingering.

In the kitchen

Dress it with fat rather than acid — oil, or a spoon of cream; a vinaigrette on top of that oxalic bite turns the plate metallic. Never wilt it in aluminium or bare cast iron.

Goes with

Arctic char Butter Cream Potato Egg Reindeer

In season alongside

Buckler-leaf sorrel Cucamelon Kabosu Oxalis Begonia petals Cilantro / Coriander

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