Shepherd’s purse ✦

Bourse-à-pasteur

What it is

Both names describe the seed pod: bursa pastoris, the shepherd's purse, a flat triangular pouch hanging along the stem. In Japan the same weed is nazuna, one of the seven herbs eaten in rice porridge on the seventh of January, and in Shanghai it is a filling long before it is ever a leaf.

In the kitchen

Blanch thirty seconds, refresh, then squeeze hard and chop fine: the water it holds will otherwise burst wontons open in the pot. Pick it before the flower stalk rises — once it is in flower the leaves go stringy and no amount of chopping fixes it.

Goes with

Pork Toasted sesame oil Ginger Silken tofu (kinugoshi) Shrimp Soy sauce

In season alongside

Ashitaba Celtuce Ground elder Longjing tea Lamb’s lettuce Oregon white truffle

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