Hogweed Stem and Chorizo Egg Tart

This simple Hogweed Stem and Chorizo Egg Tart can be cooked up and eaten hot or cold, meaning you can make it whenever you get time, enjoy it as a whole meal with salad or sweet potato chips.

Find our common hogweed foraging guide here

1 tart to feed 4

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Ingredients:

• 3 large free range eggs
• 100ml single cream
• 6 ready-made small tart crusts
• 100g chorizo
• 12 young hogweed stems
• A pinch of mature cheddar for each tart

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Method for our Hogweed Stem and Chorizo Egg Tart:

1. In a jug mix your eggs and cream thoroughly and season with salt and pepper
2. Pour your mixture in to your tarts
3. Slice your chorizo and add to your tarts evenly
4. Put 2 hogweed stems in each tart and sprinkle some cheese over the top
5. Place in a preheated oven at 200C for 15 minutes
6. Remove and enjoy with chickweed or other salad.

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Find all of our Common Hogweed Recipes right here

Physical Characteristics of Common Hogweed

Hogweed is a herbaceous perennial or biennial plant that can grow from 50-120cms in height. The main stem rises from a large reddish rhizomatous root, it is striated or ribbed, hollow, and has bristly hairs all over.

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Leaves

The leaves can reach a length of 55cms in length, they are very pinnate, hairy, and serrated, they are divided into 3-5 lobed sections, the edges are typically round, unlike giant hogweed which are always extremely pointed.

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Flowers

Hogweed has white to pinkish flowers, displayed in large umbels (umbrella looking) up to 25cms, each containing 15-30 individual flowers, these individual flowers contain 5 petals.

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Seeds

The seeds are winged and flattened contained in pods with rounded edges, up to 1cm long.

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Edible Use:

Root: edible, grated, Lacto fermented, alcohol infusions Stem: steamed, chopped in salads, battered, fried, on pizzas and omelets Leaves: soups, dried as a seasoning Fruit/seeds: as cardamom in cakes, cookies, shortbread, chutney, rice, curries, as a celery salt, infused with alcohol.

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Herbal

It’s referenced that the seeds have been used medicinally in the past, being heated in oil and applied to the skin for shingles; also a decoction of the seeds was to be used for aiding a running ear.

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Miscellaneous

When all of the smaller leaves have grown, you often get new shoots appearing halfway up previously growing shafts, they can be found either in or emerging from paper-looking sheaths, these can be used exactly the same as the really young shoots.

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Tips and Observations

Personally, I never wear gloves when picking this plant, of course, I don’t purposefully rub the juice on myself but I’ve never had an issue with the juice, if you plan to collect a lot of hogweeds or a little, wearing gloves, maybe marigolds, would be a safe bet, but don’t worry yourself too much.

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References

more on hogweed from the wildlife trust