Whether you’re foraging for your own lamps – native North American onions, a spring craze – you can enjoy the strength for months by buying them in the market and extending the fleeting and precious seasons by making lamp leaf oil. The vibrant, lush oil can be frozen in jars and scooped out if necessary.
Lampleaf oil brightens humble dishes like eggs and toast, and enhances soups and casseroles to cooking stardom. Making the most out of lamp leaves also shifts focus from bulbs where wild over-harvesting continues on a commercial scale. Here are two ways to make lamp leaf oil: raw and roasted.
Photo by Marie Virjon.
If you are collecting wild harvest lamps (rather than buying or growing them), collect them conservatively and focus on the leaves.
A side note: Lamp-earning fever is authentic, which generally encourages people who are new to plants to forage for them. This can lead to unpleasant results. New leaves of False Hellebore (Veratrum Viride) appear simultaneously with the lamp and may superficially resemble the leaves of the lamp. The difference that we convey is the distinct pleated leaves of fake hellebore. The lamp leaves are smooth. Also, all wild onions smell like onion, so even if you don’t believe your eyes (and apps), trust your nose. Does it smell like an onion? It’s not a lamp. If this lamp looks like it, immediate medical intervention is required, consuming this lamp will immediately cause you to get sick.
Use lamp leaf oil like this:
Packed with grilled steak, fish and mushrooms. Whisk into salad dressing. I schmeared it on toast. Tap the eggs lightly. It swirled around the mashed potatoes. It rained lightly on the potato salad. I painted it on a feta slab before baking. Stir in a soup that looks like green broth cube.
This oil can be made with oily leaves, from household chives to leeks, leeks and other wild onions like invasive wild garlic.
Roast Lamp Leaf Oil
Adapted from feed, harvest and feasts – Wild cuisine (Chelsea Green Publishing).
Make a 3 x 4 oz jar
The coal-related quick char adds smoky depth to the lampreef oil.
It is essential to keep this. Also, no other oils made with fresh food in the fridge or freezer are found on the countertops.
6oz lamp leaves, 1 cup of washed and dried avocado oil
The lamp remains on the coal or gas barbecue until it turns very lightly brown at the edges for 4-8 minutes depending on the fire. Flip the leaves over with tongs. Leave on top of the coal for another minute, then move to the plate to cool.
Place the lamp leaves in a bowl of a pulse food processor and apply oil with the cup until completely smooth. Bottles in sterile jars. Store in the fridge or freeze until needed. To use it, simply scoop out a spoonful at a time.
What about raw lamp leaf oil? It’s exactly the same, minus… you guessed it: roasting. Simply pulsate the raw leaves with oil until smooth, then bottle as above.
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