During a recent Earth Eats taping, Chef Daniel Orr (of FARMbloomington) showed us a number or recipes using ramps, a type of foraged wild leek (if you want to learn more about ramps, Earth Eats has you covered).
One of the recipes was for a wild ramp pesto, so when I had an opportunity to pick up some ramps at the farmer’s market on Saturday morning, I thought I’d give it a shot.
Whole Wheat Pasta with Wild Ramp Pesto, Baby Spinach, Sundried Tomatoes and Sauteed Shiitake Mushrooms
The pesto is basically just the ramps pureed in a blender with pine nuts, olive oil and parmesan cheese (the cheese is obviously optional if you want to make the pesto vegan, or, if you’re freezing it).
Once you’ve made that, I sauteed the mushrooms (cleaned and coarsely chopped) in some garlic butter I made earlier in the week, but you could also use olive oil and a clove or two of fresh garlic. Then, add a few chopped sundried tomatoes and a couple handfuls of spinach and saute just until the spinach is wilted.
Finally, toss the mushrooms, sundried tomatoes and spinach with the pesto and cooked pasta and top with some grated parmesan cheese.
The ramps have a really intense garlic flavor with hints of citrus. They’re very tasty, but I understand they only grow in certain parts of the country. West Virginia is so wild about them that they have several ramp festivals, the largest of which is in Richwood, West Virginia, “The Ramp Capital of The World.” No joke.