Eat Your Weeds aka Ground Elder Fritters (Danish: Skvalderkålfrikadeller)

The high beds in my coop's yard are a mess. But as it turns out - an edible mess.

My own small squares I've spent years weeding, adding the odd perennial and ground cover, but the plots furthest from mine haven't been tended to in ages. Not a bad deal actually. 

Yesterday, I fell over this recipe while googleing "ground elder recipes". It sounded easy, delicious, and the fact that Noma was mentioned didn't repel me, to say the least.  

I ran up to our apartment to grab my trusty foraging basket, and went to town on the neighbor's weeds. I figured they didn't need them anyway. 

Do please note that the basket is placed among my own ineble geraniums. I'd suggest google imaging ground elder yourself until you feel comfortable identifying them in the wild...

A whole basket took about 15 minutes to gather. And I only took the youngest, shiniest leaves, leaving as much stem as possible behind. A basketful like the one shown here is about 100 grams. The perfect amount for this particular dish. I forgot outright to put shallots in it, and I was feeding a gluten intolerant guest last night, so I left out the breadcrumbs and wheat flour, opting for cauliflower and cornmeal instead. Worked like a charm. 

The list of ingredients, in full:

100 g. (or a basketful) young ground elder leaves

2 eggs

1 cup cauliflower florets

3 heaping tablespoons cornmeal

50 grams of feta cheese

1 small handful shredded mozzarella

salt 

Blend all the ingredients BUT the mozzarella in a food processor. 

Stir the mozzarella in with a spoon just before frying.

Fry in batches of 5-6 on a skillet in veggie oil. 

I used a tablespoon to measure my dollops, I was afraid they'd fall apart if they were bigger. 

It worked out pretty well as you can see!

They were really tasty, even (some of) the kids liked it! :)

I will be out foraging for more soon, hoping to use them in lieu of spinach on a pizza or something - I'll let y'all know!