When we started our garden in April, we planted summer purslane. That was a really stupid move as we were soon to find out. It grew nicely with thick yellowish leaves. At the same time, every inch of earth in our garden covered itself with it’s wild sister, wild purslane. Smaller and greener leaves with an intense fresh smell. Very robust in nature. We we’re thrilled to find it there, we used to pay a lot of money in the rare cases we found it for sale on the market.
A couple of months later we found out that purslane is actually quite a problem. It simply grew everywhere and we spent hours and hours uprooting it between our regular crop. After a ten days holiday, it had almost taken over… I cleaned, steamed and froze about two kilos, but our initial enthusiasm very much subsided. Now we’re doing the sowing and growing for the autumn harvest and make sure to uproot most of the purslane early on.
Nevertheless, it’s a healthy and tasty plant and here comes our favourite recipe
For two portions you need:
- Two hands full of purslane, washed thoroughly and roughly chopped
- 1 onion, sliced
- 4 tomatoes, diced
- Leamon
- Olive oil, salt
Heat a good deal of olive oil in a pan, fry the onion for a minute, add the purslane for another minute, add the tomato dices and cook under cover on low fire for 15 minutes. If necessary, add some more olive oil in the process. Salt to taste. Serve with bread or rice and a dash of lemon.