The ubiquitous garlicky blossom of spring returns
On foraging for onion weed, making and breaking culinary rules and an Austrian soda.
Nau mai, haere mai. Welcome to The Boil Up, The Spinoff’s weekly food newsletter produced in partnership with Boring Oat Milk. Written by me, Charlotte Muru-Lanning. It’s lovely to have you here!
After almost an entire week cooped up inside, making the best of what was a curiously bad cold (I’d almost forgotten how gross non-Covid viruses can be), I ventured out for a walk yesterday. Within that 20-minute traipse to the office I was reminded of the restorative nature of the sun, especially that specific kind of sun that spring delivers.
For me, the essence of spring is best revealed in wandering around wherever it is you live. Even in central-Auckland, a walk around my neighbourhood conjures a version of spring that feels bucolic and cheerful – despite being unmistakably urban. Curls of jasmine crawling over fences, wild freesias establishing themselves between crevices in the foot path, furry borage flowers in bloom, trees brimming with just-about-ripe loquats and, then, there’s my favourite: onion weed. The edible garlicky blossom is the ubiquitous queen of springtime, and a fantastic ingredient to incorporate into your cooking. If they grow where you live, they shouldn’t be hard to find. In fact, once you start noticing onion weed, you’ll never stop seeing it when it’s in season – a skill that’s as much a gift as a curse.
You’ll find it peeking out from under fences and among grassy berms with its recognisable three-sided fleshy stalks and drooping white flowers. If you’re still unsure whether you’re holding the right kind of bloom, crush the stalk between your fingers – it should have an oniony scent that mirrors its delicate onion taste. When the flowers and leaves start to disappear later in the season, the bulbs can be collected and eaten too.
While they’re in bloom, in celebration of springtime and Virgo season, I’ll be adding the tiny, white buds to my salads, sautéing the halved stalks in plenty of butter to eat with hunks of bread and trying to perfect my beer-battered onion weed. Be wary of where you’re sourcing onion weed from – staying away from any areas that might have been contaminated. As always, make sure to give them a good wash before you start cooking with them.
The beauty of onion weed is that for one, you’re helping to clear a pesky weed, but also that it can be used in many recipes as a replacement for whenever you’d ordinarily add onions, garlic, chives or spring onion. Last year, the Spinoff published a piece on onion weed if you’re after more inspiration.
The Boil Up is brought to you in partnership with Boring Oat Milk.
As the best supporting actor in cereal, flat whites and smoothies; milk is essential but honestly, who gets excited about it? This oat milk isn’t particularly riveting either. It doesn’t have exciting artificial flavours, stabilisers or nasty surprises. Fortified with calcium and vitamins; it’s boringly similar to regular milk but without the actual milking bit. It doesn’t even come from anywhere fancy like Sweden, it’s all made in New Zealand using New Zealand oats. Made with a tough crowd in mind, this is a neutral, yet creamy, full-bodied and delicious oat milk.
Head to boringmilk.com for an untapped supply of New Zealand made oat milk straight from the source. Check the box that says ‘Subscription’ and save 10%.
Weekly bites
After alarms were raised at the ever-increasing carloads and busloads of visitors gathering pāua in Taranaki, local hapū laid a rāhui on collecting kaimoana along a 12-kilometre stretch of beach earlier this year. The ban has since spread along the coast and in May, a collection of hapū groups asked the minister for oceans and fisheries to legally ban seafood gathering along the coast, to help enforce the rāhui. The proposal for the two-year legal ban would extend two nautical miles offshore, covering some 300 square kilometres, and include pāua, kina, pūpū, rock lobster, crabs, octopus, anemones, conger eel and all seaweed (excluding beach cast). RNZ reported over the weekend that New Plymouth district councillors are considering supporting the ban.
The Great Discontinuation continues with Airwaves gum, the gum you either loved or loathed, becoming yet another casualty on the ceaseless list of discontinued products. Whether you were a fan of the aggressively-minty VapoRub-tasting pellets or not, I recommend this ode to chewing gum from The Atlantic.
It’s always struck me as odd that canned whipped cream even describes itself as “whipped cream”, an ingredient that seems so distantly removed from that specifically cloudlike, fluff that hisses out of a canister. Canned whipped cream made headlines this week as multiple news outlets reported that people under the age of 21 would no longer be able to buy whipped cream in New York in an effort to combat the problem of teenagers getting high by inhaling nitrous oxide from inside the canisters. Those reports seem to be the result of a misinterpretation of the bill which instead targets the sale of the canisters by themselves. While some of us might be unaware of the alternative uses for the canisters, last year, Re: took a look at our local whipped cream dispenser industry and surmised that our current approach to the market sits in an awkward place between the substance being readily available, with little information available regarding its alternative usage and risk of harm.
Creating rules around food, on why an ingredient should never be eaten this way, that way or even at all, I’ve always thought was a profoundly weird hill to die on. Even so – it seems like at least once a week online someone confidently proclaims a rule about how an ingredient or dish should be cooked or eaten. And each time, this will undoubtedly be followed up with furious rebuttals. Food writer Rebecca May Johnson writes in The Guardian on the meaning of making and breaking culinary rules, and why she actually quite enjoys being a spectator to this type of culinary beef.
The Spinoff Members is a community dedicated to supporting quality, homegrown journalism. Will you join us?
From our newsletters and podcasts, to our coverage of te ao Māori and political reporting – the support of readers like you makes this work possible and helps to ensure it remains freely available to all. If you can, please consider making a contribution today.
The weekly snack
Almdudler original soft drink, $4.90 from Safka: Snack purchases are more often than not the result of attempts to fill spaces of time that would otherwise be crammed with overwhelming boredom: waiting for a train, running surprisingly early to an appointment, or in the case of this snack, mooching about Karangahape Road while my friend gets a haircut. Among the snacks I walked out of the shop with, was this cheering, red can of “the national drink of Austria”, called Almdudler. The name is a reference to singing in the alpine meadows and you taste that in the effervescent drink which combines grape and apple juice with alpine herbs. It’s fruity, medicinal, and ever-so slightly bitter – the perfect drink for killing time. 8.5/10
Talk next week!
Hei kōnā mai, Charlotte
