Cooking Spring Greens

There is nothing like buying the first fresh greens when the local farmer's market opens in the spring. Greens are the harbingers of great fresh produce to come and can be prepared in many different ways. Here are five of my favorite spring treats:

1. French Sorrel

Sorrel is a perennial herb that is used often in French cooking. It has a tangy lemony flavor and can be chopped into salads raw or used in many cooked preparations. My favorite way to use sorrel is to make sorrel soup, a traditional Eastern European staple. Sorrel soup can be as simple as chicken broth with chopped sorrel leaves or can include chopped boil egg or boiled potatoes. Sorrel soup is the first thing I turn to when I come down with a cold or the flu.

2. Mesclun

Mesclun isn't one particular green but a combination of many baby lettuce and other leaves. Every mesclun mix is different. Some are peppery with the addition of arugula and some are savory with herbs added into the mix. Mesclun is most often served as a salad, dressed lightly with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Mesclun mixes are also delicious served when wilted in hot butter in a skillet and added to hot pasta. They can also be used anywhere cooked spinach would be used, such as in Greek spanikopita.

3. Ramps

If you can find wild ramps in your local farmer's market, you are in for a treat (and probably some mouthwash). Ramps (also known as wild leeks or wild garlic) are a wild type of perennial onion that grows over much of the Eastern United States in wooded areas. Ramps taste like a combination of onion and strong garlic and should be used sparingly until you know your tolerance. Traditionally, they are chopped like scallions and fried up with potatoes or pinto beans. You can even make wild ramp pie! Use them anywhere you would use onions or garlic.

4. Baby Spinach

Spinach is often one of the most cold-hardy greens up in the spring and baby spinach leaves are sweet and delicious. They can be used as a salad ingredient or lightly wilted to top baked potatoes or even cornbread. Baby spinach should not be used in cooking preparations that use long cooking methods as the delicate qualities of the leaves disappear.

5. Fiddleheads

This is my absolute favorite spring treat. While most other spring greens can be replicated throughout the year, fiddleheads cannot. They are the immature fronds of several ferns grown throughout North America and Europe, with the most commonly-used being the ostrich fern. Fiddleheads are harvested from the wild. Each plant grows seven fronds in the spring and only three are harvested from each plant to keep it healthy. The fern fronds can only be harvested during a very short window when they first poke their heads up from the ground. Fiddle heads can be served in many ways but the simplest and tastiest is to simply saute them lightly in butter with a pinch of salt.