Patio Salad!
The weather has finally warmed up in my neighborhood. Not quite warm or predictable enough to plant our usual retinue of garden plants. But one of the most welcome plants has already popped up of its own accord. This is none other than wild arugula.
It’s a delightful plant with sawtooth leaves and a delicious, peppery flavor. When we lived briefly in Italy, we’d find it growing wild in the fields where we lived. The plant is an annual but it self-sows readily. We’d go out in the morning and pick a bunch for an afternoon or dinner salad.
The Italians call it “rughetta,” the French say “rocquette,” the English say “rocket.” Cookbook writer Diane Seed includes a wonderful recipe in one of her books for pasta with wild rocket. Nearly every pizza place we visited in Italy offered wild rocket tossed atop their pizza. After the pie came out of the oven, they would toss a fresh handful on top, which was a great way to delude yourself that your pizza was healthy. They would also gently wilt it and cook it with sliced skirt steak or flank steak, sometimes with a balsamic sauce. The dish, called straccetti, is awesome.
As soon as we had our own garden in the United States, we planted wild rocket and now it grows wild all over the place, in and out of the garden. It grows in our driveway. It sprouts out of cracks in our brick patio. Giant mounds of it pop out of the mulched areas in the garden. And we welcome it all. Especially now, since there’s precious little growing in our neck of the woods. Being able to step outside to amass a salad that’s a gift from nature is the best.
I am happy to eat it in a dish by itself, but my wife buys other greens to mix with it. She thinks it’s a little too peppery to eat on its own. But I don’t mind.
Early in the year, when the weather is still cool, rughetta leaves are wide, fat with flavor, and you can pinch tons of leaves that are wholly intact. As the weather warms up and the plant takes beating, the leaves thin out, fade from their original bright green color, and become spindly and ragged. It can be hard at that time of year to amass enough for a meal.
One year, I shared some seeds with a farmer friend of ours who sells produce at our local farmers’ markets. He knew the plant but had never grown this particular variety. He said when it became too unruly he simply mowed it, and to his delight the plants simply rejuvenated themselves. That’s a technique I ought to emulate, but my clumps are never in a spot that is handy to mow.
I bought my original seeds from a reputable indie seed company called Johnny’s Selected Seeds. (This is the variety I bought, sylvetta.) I love Johnny’s and usually buy from them every year but I’ve never had to buy arugula after that first seeding. It will probably grow forever in my yard, long after I am gone. However, last year I noticed Johnny’s was selling a few other varieties that they claim are easier to harvest, such as Bellezia. I am tempted to try them, but considering how much of the previous version I have, the newbies will probably cross-pollinate and never stay true in future seasons. (These are NOT affiliate links. I don’t get a dime from Johnny’s. I just love them to pieces.)
Go ahead and treat yourself to free food for the rest of your life. You’ll be glad you did. If you plant it, you can stop buying salad in those stupid plastic bins from the supermarket, unless you want a different taste, or it is winter and the rughetta is taking a break.
Try it, you’ll like it!
I usually try to mention one of my books when I post here. Preferably, one that fits the topic I’m writing about. My bookshop mystery fits the bill today. Sure, it’s about murder, but my detective is a hilarious Italian American gourmand who loves arugula. In the new book I’m writing, she grows it in pots in her bookshop in summer.
I hope you’ll check out my cozy mystery, Murder on Book Row, (affiliate link) which has a great new cover.
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