I thought that I had tried ramps before, I found out that I was sadly mistaken, and confusing them with garlic scapes (which should be at the farmer’s market soon!). So I tried them out, after finding them at my local Whole Foods.
I wasn’t entirely sure how to use them. I knew I could use them just like any other onion-y vegetable as a base ingredient for something else, but something told me these deserved to be special. I hunted around for ways to prepare them, and came across this old New York Times article. I went ahead and oil braised them, as the article suggested. One thing to not freak out over is the amount of oil called for- the vegetable won’t soak most of it up. I’m not sure that this is how I would prepare them in the future, however, as I wasn’t crazy about the amount of oil left on the vegetable even after blotting with paper towels. They were very, very good.
I used them two different ways.
I used some of the leaves to make my grilled jerk tofu look special.
I used the rest in barley risotto.
Both ways were highly delicious.
