Reflexed stonecrop ✦

Trique-madame

What it is

The French name orpin réfléchi records a movement rather than a taste: the flower head curls backwards on itself before opening, then straightens as the buds break. Under its older name, trique-madame, it was eaten as a spring salad long before anyone thought of it as a garnish.

In the kitchen

Take only the young growth: once the plant has flowered the needles turn woody and bitter together. Salt it at the table and never in advance — salt collapses the cells, and the snap is the whole reason to buy it.

Goes with

Olive oil Samphire Tomato Goat cheese Egg Anchovy

In season alongside

Ice plant Purslane Begonia petals Buckler-leaf sorrel Buck’s-horn plantain Cockle

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