Ribwort plantain ✦

Plantain lancéolé

What it is

It shares a genus with psyllium, the plant whose seed husks are sold as fibre, and its own seeds go slippery in water in exactly the same way. Foragers walk past the tough ribbed leaf for the unopened flower buds, which taste of button mushroom the moment they hit hot fat.

In the kitchen

Sear the buds a minute in foaming butter over high heat until they squeak and colour. Spikes that have already opened have gone woody, and no amount of cooking brings them back.

Goes with

Butter Egg Button mushroom Garlic Cream Shallot Walnut oil

Same species

Buck’s-horn plantain

In season alongside

Bamboo shoot St George’s mushroom Japanese abalone Broccoli Cauliflower Charcoal burner

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