Cheesy Garlic Mustard Pesto Pasta with Crispy Dryad's Saddle

This recipes draws on Lisa's amazingly flavorful and fragrant Garlic Mustard Pesto. The garlic mustard pesto is super fragrant, complex, and dare I say, luscious. It gives basil pesto a run for its money...

Dryad's Saddle is a really common wild mushroom that I've been harvesting a lot of lately. In this recipe, they're sliced thinly and fried crispy in butter—they add a savory crunch to the whole dish. If you haven't got this on hand, use fresh shiitake.

Cheesy Garlic Mustard Pesto Pasta

What You Need:

1 lb rice or quinoa pasta of your preference (Or go gluten if you can handle it)
1 1/2 cups Lisa's Garlic Mustard Pesto
1 cup grated parmesan or other hard cheese
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil

Crisp Mushrooms

5 fresh, young Dryad's Saddle (about 2 or 3oz)
1 tbsp butter

• Put a pot on to boil. When it's rolling, drop in your pasta and stir.


• In a small pan, heat the butter


• Slice the dryad's saddle thinly and drop into the butter once it starts to melt. Cook these at medium heat for 5-10 minutes, until they turn light brown and crispy—just in time for the pasta to finish. When they're ready, take them off the heat and set them aside


• Once the pasta is al-dente, strain it from the pot with a large slotted spoon into a medium bowl. The point here is to bring along some of the cooking water in the process.


• Stir the pesto into the hot pasta.


• Stir in the cheese, vinegar, and oil.


• Add a little more cooking water to loosen the whole mixture a touch. Add salt and pepper to taste, if necessary. Sprinkle on the crispy mushrooms and serve hot with a nice glass of wine, or in my case, a beer :).

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Wild, Weedy & Edible: Garlic Mustard

*This is a guest post by Lisa Rose Starner. Lisa is an urban homesteader, wildcrafter, forager, gardener, and herbalist who lives in Grand Rapids, MI. She runs a small herbal CSA and writes about local foods and herbalism. Learn more about her work @ Burdock & Rose*

What is the adage, "A weed is a plant that is growing where you don't want it?"

[caption id="attachment_526" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Young garlic mustard shoot"][/caption]

Abundant in areas of disturbed soil—at the forest's edge, along roadsides, and on river floodplains, the Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) is deemed by conservationist organizations like The Land Conservancy to be more that a noxious "weed," but an invasive species—choking out native vegetation and spreading wildly across the state. The National Park Service describes the earliest appearance of the Garlic Mustard on the Atlantic coast to be documented in 1868. It is believed that it was brought along by settlers to the area of Long Island, NY for food and medicinal purposes.

Since that time in the 1800s, Garlic Mustard has spread south and west and has wrecked havoc on natural areas throughout the Eastern United States, particularly throughout fields, floodplains, and woodlands here in the Great Lakes BioRegion.

What makes Garlic Mustard able to take over so much area in so little time? Garlic Mustard thrives on disturbed land and areas under development. It is winter hardy and can reproduce lightning fast with its ability to produce hundreds of seeds once it goes to flower. And once the plant sets its seed, the seeds can remain viable in the soil for many years.

Behind Every Vice… The Garlic Mustard's Virtue

And while Garlic Mustard continues to persist throughout our Great Lakes bioregion and threatens to crowd-out wildflowers and native vegetation, we can consider one of its virtues: It is edible!

Like many early spring greens, the flavors of the Garlic Mustard are predominantly bitter. Different parts of the plant, as well the age of the plant can affect the degree in the bitter flavor.

Great Lakes Herbalist Jim McDonald believes that the Bitter flavors of plants, while having a negative connotation to many, may be one of the keys to our wellness. Bitter flavors help stimulate digestion, bile production and can support healthy liver function. Other bitter plants that are beneficial to add into the diet include parsley, arugula, romaine, radicchio, endive, dandelion, and coffee. Best thing about Garlic Mustard as a bitter—it can be easily harvested for FREE with little concern of damaging its plant population!

Forager and wild food expert, Steve Brill, explains early basal roots are more bitter in the spring, the fleshy stems less so—and it is sweeter in the fall after a frost. The roots are slightly nutty, and the second year plant should be harvested just before it flowers… But don't get caught up in these rules—if you are pulling it to preserve other plants in your garden or a participating in a pull, use it and partner it with other flavors like parsley, walnuts and lemon to suit your palate!

One of the most popular ways to prepare Garlic Mustard is preparing it as a versatile, delicious pesto. Variations on pesto recipes can vary to suit personal taste preference and the flavor of the Garlic Mustard that is being harvested.

Want to prepare a large batch? Pesto can be made without the nuts (they tend to taste rancid after thawing) and froze into ice-cube sized portions that will last for several months until the local Basil is ready for harvest here in Michigan.

Need ideas for uses of the Garlic Mustard pesto? The pesto can be added to pasta, used in soups (like a French soup au pistou), served on crackers with cheese as an elegant appetizer, or even used as a base for a wild foods pizza of local Michigan Morels, homemade soft cheese, and wild onion.

Basic Foraged Greens & Garlic Mustard Pesto

What You Need:

4 cups leaves, stems of Garlic Mustard (washed)
1 cup wild chives
1 cup wild garlic scapes
1 cup parsley (if desired)
1 cup walnuts (or pinenuts - though I am not a fan)
4 TBSP olive oil
1tsp sea salt, pepper, squirt of lemon juice to taste

• Add all to food processor, puree.


• Check flavor, add parsley, salt, pepper to preferred taste.


• Serve over crackers, on pizza, pasta, soup… the ideas are limitless and the pesto can be used in similar ways to traditional basil pesto.

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Steamed Garlic Mustard Marinara

The much-maligned and ubiquitous inhabitant of disturbed forest soils—garlic mustard—is in its prime right now. This recipes utilized the tender top 5 or 6 inches. You can harvest them when in flower or bud stage, just follow the stem to the top and bend until they snap cleanly. I harvested mine while pulling them up to feed to my chickens, but you could just as well go for a walk in your local woodland and snag enough in a few minutes. The garlicly, mustardy flavor pairs perfectly with the acidity of the tomatoes, richness of the onions and garlic, and creaminess of the cheese and oil.

What You'll Need:

2 or 3 large handfuls of tender garlic mustard tops (top 5 or 6 inches)
1 medium onion sliced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cups tomato sauce or puree (or leftover pasta sauce, home canned tomatoes diced up, whatever is on hand)
4 tbsp butter (or your favorite fat/oil)
4 tsp ground black pepper
A fistful of fresh herbs from the garden, chopped (parsley, thyme, oregano, whatever is on hand).
1/2 cup grated hard cheese
Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
Salt to taste

• Put a large pan on medium heat and melt your butter.


• Toss in the garlic and onions, and sweat them down until they're translucent—should take around 4 or 5 minutes at medium heat.


• Add in your tomato sauce, black pepper, and half of your fresh herbs. Stir and let bubble for 4 or 5 minutes.


• Wash up your garlic mustard tops.


• When the sauce is nice and warm, salt to taste, then lay the garlic mustard on top of the sauce and cover the whole thing with a lid and allow to steam for roughly 2 minutes.


• Once the garlic mustard turns a bright-ish green, toss the whole lot together, and add in 1/2 or 3/4 of the cheese. Toss again and let stand for a minute.


• Top with the remaining cheese, a drizzle of fresh oil, and serve with cooked pasta (I love rice or quinoa pasta), cooked rice, or as a side dish.

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