Sea rocket ✦

Roquette de mer

What it is

Cakile is one of the few plant genera to carry an Arabic name straight into Linnaean Latin, from kakileh. On the dunes it served as famine food twice over: the leaves eaten green, and the long taproot dried and ground into the bread flour once the grain ran out.

In the kitchen

Raw, or barely warmed: the mustard heat is volatile and thirty seconds in a pan leaves nothing but salt and water. Rinse in cold fresh water and dry it hard, or sand stays trapped in the folds of the leaf.

Goes with

Oyster Mackerel Olive oil Potato Lemon Cucumber

In season alongside

Garlic mustard Mustard greens Nasturtium capers Picodon Rat-tail radish pod Rocket

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