The Wild & The Tame

Love in Bloom: Treat yourself to nasturtium blossoms stuffed with curried egg salad.Wild WildThe the Tame& Did that nasturtium ust say something to me? From roses to rockweed, gourmet flora add a touch of spice and dash to a host of exciting restaurant specialties.

BY MOLLY MacLEOD

Maine chefs love to take us where the wild things are–sometimes, in full bloom. Depending on the blossom, flowers may be infused into vinegar or simple syrup, folded into an omelet, tossed fresh into a salad, or dried or pickled for a rainy day. Consider this fragrant handful of gourmet Maine flora brought to table by Maine chefs. Beyond their beauty, their magic seems to be, “A lot of these things don’t need much preparation,” says ay illani of Local 1 and Sonny’s. ”If you source out a quality product, you don’t have to do much to it. That’s the whole stee of it. If nature gives it to you, it’s awesome on its own.” Is that a nasturtium in my soup? These flame orange, yellow, and purple eye-poppers, which spin wildly out of Maine gardens and patio pots in late summer and fall, should come with a gentle warning for the

spicy flavor hiding inside their velvety petals. Rob Evans of Hugo’s says, “The flowers have this very subtle floral note to them–I can’t even say flavor;’ it’s a note.” Then there’s the interesting complication that not all nasturtiums are equal, says illani. Some are “a little sweet, and some are bitter or really grassy.” Still, a nasturtium “is what it is. I ust use it on salads.” So does Steve Corry of , who combines local lamb’s lettuce, pickled fiddleheads, and fresh goat cheese with a nasturtium vinaigrette. “This way,” he says, “you can use many ingredients that normally wouldn’t be seen together but work beautifully in tandem.”

Which brings us to the signature circular leaves and tendrils, which seem to have all but invented the art nouveau movement. “Luscious and peppery, the leaves are a great addition to salads,” says Rich Hanson of Cleonice in Ellsworth. Evans chimes in, “ They taste almost like arugula. I’ve made a nasturtium leaf soup by blanching the leaves and pureeing them with chicken stock, then finishing it with a whipped lemon cr me fraiche and a nasturtium flower.”

We’re not finished yet. When the plants start bursting a bud, pull a lasic and pickle them! (But only if you happen to like martinis.) “A pickled nasturtium bud is great in a gin martini,” says Greg Wilson of The Front Room. Hanson adds, “It has the appearance of a caper but the flavor is way more peppery.” But wait–now the martini’s gone; what to do? “I might chop them up and add them to an aioli,” says Sam Hayward of Fore Street. “I use the pickling brine as the acidulating ingredient in the aioli and serve that with grilled fish. It’s really good!” Not tea roses, sea roses! The

flavor and scent of Rugosa roses simultaneously evoke your grandmother’s bathroom, the Far East, and the Maine seashore, and it is precisely this exotic familiarity (and souvenir of our all-too-brief summers) that inspires chefs to feature them on their menus. “One of my favorite ways is in a rose-champagne sorbet,” says Sam Hayward of Fore Street Restaurant. “It’s fun and subtle and fragrant, especially in the middle of winter–a little headful of sunshine.” The sea-rose blossoms add a perfumed quality to Hayward’s creation. “It’s the simplest thing in the world, and ust a beautiful combination of aroma, texture, and champagne,” he says, “but you can’t use bad champagne. ou have to use the real thing.” rista Des arlais of Bresca also loves to use Rugosa roses in desserts, whether she infuses the petals fresh for a sorbet, crystalli es them as a garnish, or makes a elly out of the rose hips. Guy Hernande of Bar Lola on Mun oy Hill uses rose hips with black pepper in his version of panna cotta. Of the flavor, he says, “It has that sweetness without being potpourri. And it works as a counterbalance, not ust on its own. It’s like salt–you don’t necessarily want to taste the salt, you want to use it to bring out other flavors.”

Hanson agrees. “I think the blossom changes the nature of the sweetness to add layers to it and make it more exotic. The flavor is almost lush, the scent heady.” Hanson infuses rose blossoms into a simple syrup with cinnamon and hibiscus and uses it to make lemonade or the restaurant’s signature

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Even a squash has a blossom! Now this is straight-up uncommon. How often do you see squash blossoms on a menu in Maine? “What you’ve got is a delicate vegetal vessel to contain whatever you’ve got inside,” says Hayward, whose most PENDING memorable preparation is filling the blossoms with lobster mousse and braising them PENDING in a buerre mont (emulsified butter). Hernande appreciates the “clean, palate-cleansing” quality of the blossom when it’s stuffed with something that has a “more dominant flavor, like a salmon rillete.”

At once delicate and pacifying, with a “slightly sweet, melon flavor to them,” according to Hanson, the blossoms are also “showy” and able to stand up to strong PENDING flavors, manual manipulation, and the hot oil of a frialator. Wilson stuffs squash blos- PENDING soms with a ricotta cheese mixture before tempura-frying them, but he also tests their versatility in scrambled eggs and pasta dishes. illani is of the same mind. iVy Manor inn Bar Harbor $1,900,000

“We get squash blossoms at around the same time as black chanterelles, so we stuff the blossoms with the wild mushrooms and beer batter and fry them,” he says, adding that part of his fascination with squash blossoms is that they’re “visually interesting–who’s going to go out to the supermarket and buy these ?” Chive Talkin’ For diners who shy away from powerful onions, chive blossoms are the onion family’s best shot at a subtly fragrant sensuality. Then, too, they are simply beautiful. The soft purple globes make for a “distinct” visual accent “on salads, on tables, in floral arrangements,” says illani.

“We should be called five-fifty-chive,’” Corry okes. “We have a patch of them growing at home, and whenever they blossom, we bring them in to the restaurant. They add a mild oniony flavor and visual appeal, whether as a garnish for fish or in a salad or a risotto with mushrooms.” Hernande loves the texture of chive blossoms. “With a nasturtium, it feels like you’re eating a leaf, but with a chive blossom, you can chew it and feel that little pearl shape on the roof of your mouth. I like that the heat and the spice get up into the back of your mouth and in your sinuses.”

Wilson recommends The Front Room’s “famous chive-blossom vinaigrette, which covers a lot of fish.” Garlic chive blossoms “work especially well,” he says. “They taste a little like roasted garlic and are surprisingly creamy.” Hanson makes his white-wine vinaigrette with chive blossoms or pulls the individual flowers off and mixes them with a chevre to impart their “sharp, oniony” flavor to the smooth cheese. Des arlais says, “I use them a lot as a punctuation point in seafood dishes. We pluck the flowers off onto the dish, and those beads of flavor ust pop.” But not poison, right? Sumac garnishes Maine’s forest edges, but “it’s more prevalent in cuisine in Spain and Africa’s north coast,” says illani, who combines roasted sumac with coriander on whitefish (“wow–a little nutty, a little sweet”), along with sumac powder in marinades, spice rubs, braising liquids, or salads. Continued on page

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