Three-cornered leek ✦

Ail à trois angles

What it is

Roll a stem between your fingers and you feel three flat faces and three sharp angles — the shape names the plant and tells it apart by touch from every other wild allium. It escaped Mediterranean gardens so thoroughly that Britain now lists it among the plants it is an offence to spread into the wild.

In the kitchen

Treat it as a vegetable, not a herb: griddle the whole stems like thin leeks, two minutes a side, and scatter the raw bells over at the end. The white flowers are as edible as the stem and considerably stronger.

Goes with

Butter Egg Potato Scallop Cream Olive oil Lemon Goat cheese

Same species

Arleux smoked garlic Banana shallot Black garlic Calçot Cévennes sweet onion Chives

In season alongside

Spring onion Bamboo shoot Barbe de capucin Brousse du Rove Buck’s-horn plantain Cabbage

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