Roasted beet salad with ramps
14 May
If you’re anything like me, you probably subscribe to a lot of food blogs. Interestingly, in the last two weeks, I felt like I entered this alternative universe where “ramps” were in every recipe I came across! Ramps are a member of the onion family, also known as wild leek, or spring onion.
What’s so special about ramps? Why did it make food bloggers go gaga? Could all of these people be wrong?
According to this article in Time magazine:
“What makes ramps ramps is not their flavor, you see, but their cultural value. The Food Snob’s Dictionary, offers this explanation to Time: “The ramp is not a salad green, but it is a green vegetable, and it is the first legitimately green thing that appears from the ground in April, a month that, in terms of farm yield, is otherwise an extension of winter. For food snobs, therefore, David Kamp, the author of ramps are overcelebrated and overly scrutinized, like the first ballgame played in April, even with 161 more games ahead.”
So what did I think of them? Read below to find out.
In order to taste them in its most natural state, I sauteed them with a hint of olive oil, then made beet salad to go with it. Beets are super sweet when roasted in the oven, and adds a lot of sweetness! Thanks Yvo, of Feisty Foodie, for teaching me how to roast beets! 
Makes 4 servings
Ingredients:
1 bunch of beets with leafy parts removed, or 4 large beets
1 bunch of ramps, cut into smaller pieces
1 cup of feta or goat cheese
2 teaspoons of olive oil
Fresh cracked pepper
Sea salt
Procedure:
1. Wash and peel beets. Heat oven to 375.
2. Place beets in foil, big enough to cover the beets (if you have large beets, make 2 pouches). Sprinkle salt and pepper. Drizzle 1 teaspoon of oil over them. Cover tightly.
3. Put the beets on a baking sheet. Cook for 1 hour, until soft when poked with a toothpick (or in my case, chopstick).
4. Meanwhile, discard root part of ramps and rinse thoroughly under running water. Chop into smaller pieces (all parts of ramps are edible).
5. Heat up a frying pan over high heat. Add 1 teaspoon of oil.
6. Lower heat. Add ramps. Cook, until soft and translucent, for about 5 minutes.
7. Once beets are cooked thoroughly, assemble by slicing the into 1/2″ coins. Add a layer of cheese in between each layer of beets. Serve cold or hot. Use alfalfa sprouts for garnish!
Conclusion:
Ramps have a very strong flavor! I took a sniff and immediately thought of kimchi – that’s how pungent the smell is! They were, in fact, delicious, but not life-changing. If it were in front of me, I would eat it. Would I go looking for them again? Probably not. After all, it has more cultural value than taste value.
