Foraging Plants & Mushrooms For Vegetable Broth

[Music] everyone Madame Harrington and today I'm looking for wild plants and mushrooms that I can forage and use to create a wild vegetable broth so it's late autumn and the air is definitely cooler here in western Pennsylvania and one of the best things that we could do during the colder months of the year with wild plants and mushrooms that we forage is create a rich warm hardy vegetable broth so whenever we think of traditional vegetable broth maybe we think of adding members of the celery family like carrots celery and parsley maybe we add members of the Allium family like garlic and onions maybe we add some mints like sage rosemary and thyme now I don't think we're gonna find those particular species in these woods but I think we're going to find some good substitutes so what I'm specifically looking for today are wild members of the celery family wild Allium species and maybe even some wild mints we'll see if we can find some wild mushrooms and then once we forge those ingredients we're gonna return to the kitchen and create a wild vegetable broth so thanks for tuning in let's go see what we can find [Music] so right off the bat this is a plant I know I want to include in the wild vegetable broth because it's very aromatic this is a member of the a PACA family of the celery family this one is anise root Ozma Raisa Longy stylist now this plant one crushed smells like anise or black licorice so it's pretty easy to positively identify if you use your nose or even if you taste it you got to positively identify it before you do taste it so as I mentioned this belongs to the celery family a PACA that's a very large family of plants worldwide there are over 400 general over 3,500 species we're familiar with lots because we eat lots of them carrot celery dill parsley parsnip cilantro and the list goes on and on and on however there are some species in this family that are deadly toxic so even though there are a lot of wild edible members in the celery family you don't want to eat water hemlock you do not want to eat poison hemlock because these are deadly poisonous plants in that family so you have to be very mindful when harvesting members of the a PACA family but as I said once you go through the key identifying characteristics for this plant and you smell it it should smell like anise or black licorice you won't really confuse it for anything else so Osmo eyes the lawns of style if that's the Latin name its genus name ozma raisa means odorous root but the root isn't the only thing that smells the foliage smells as well and lawn justice refers to the long styles of this plant and styles are part of the female reproductive organ and more specifically it's the part of the pistil that connects the stigma to the ovary now anise root is native to North America though it seems to grow mostly in eastern North America where I live in Pennsylvania this plant is very common so even though it is a native plant and it's one to be very mindful of when harvesting I feel good knowing that its numbers are very strong in places like this so an assert is an herbaceous perennial that can grow to be two and a half feet tall when mature its leaves are compound and almost fern-like which is very characteristic for members of the celery family anise true grows in rich moist wood typically in shady areas and its key feature is its fragrance rub the leaves of anise root or scratch the root and you will smell anise or black licorice very few plants smell like this so it is a key identifying feature now there is one plant that very closely resembles Ozma Raisa Longy stylist and that is sweet Cicely and that's another member of the Ozma rise of genus that's why they look alike now that one Ozma Raisa claytonia I should smell less like anise or less like black licorice and it's Styles are shorter but you won't see that until the plants are flowering and producing fruits but that one is edible and you can use that one just like this it probably just won't provide as much flavor and won't smell as strongly as anise or black licorice so once I positively identified this and I could smell the anise black licorice I'm going to harvest some of this and throw it into the vegetable broth I'm going to harvest it just like this stem and all because I'm going to strain out the greens after making the vegetable broth so there's some here there's some scattered about here that's typically how I find it I don't really see it in dense patches or dense clusters it's usually scattered about in moist woods typically in shady areas I'm just gonna harvest some of this throw it in my basket and look for the next so here's the nice handful of Oz mirai's Elan just stylist anise route that harvested right over there and this one tastes really good tastes similar to how it smells it's a very annecy now not too far away from that original patch to found another member of the a PACA family edible member and herbaceous member this one is Canadian hone wort Krypto tinea canadensis - Krypto tinea what does that mean what means hidden oil tubes essentially or hidden tinea so teeny azar oil tubes found in members of the celery family in the case of home wart these oil tubes are hidden so this one is like a mild cross between parsley and celery leaf that's what I get whenever I taste it if you crush the foliage that's how it should smell as well but of course don't taste it until you positive identify now as with many members of the APA CA family one of the best ways to positively identify them is when they are flowering they're not flowering right now this one is not flowering right now neither is hone ward they typically flower during the summer months so what I encourage you to do is visit these plants during the summer months take note of their characteristics while their flowering look at the leaves then revisit those plants later in the year when they're not flowering that way you can feel confident in your identification so homework RIPTA tinea canadensis as a mature plant is typically taller than Anna Street and it can grow to be up to 3 feet tall this time of year mid autumn it lies pretty low to the forest floor as a member of the celery family it has compound leaves these compound leaves are trifoliate so they contain three leaflets which are serrated or toothed and broad so they're not as fern-like as you would see in an assert now here's a key feature look at the foliage and you'll see that the leaflets are typically broadly lobed this is something that I always look for when identifying hone ward these lobed serrated leaflets they almost resemble mittens and remember these leaflets come in threes not twos not fives but threes and of course you want to crush the foliage and smell it once you can positively identify this plant taste it and note this very herbaceous parsley celery leaf flavor the homework grows throughout North America it's mostly common in eastern North America and it's native to eastern North America it is very common where I live and there's a very healthy population in these particular woods so what I'm going to do is harvest these and throw them into that vegetable broth I'm going to strain it out afterwards like I will with the other greens so I'm going to harvest the leaves and I'm going to harvest the stalks as well there's a bunch scattered throughout here I'll probably even harvest some more Anna's fruit while I'm at it ok so right now in the basket I have Anna's fruit and hone wort to members of the celery family which will definitely add a lot of flavor to the vegetable broth I'm really excited because right now I just discovered a species in the lamiaceae a family or the mint family in this one when crush smells like a cross between minty lavender or Earl Grey tea so this will definitely intensify the flavor of the vegetable broth so this is a wild monarda species and monarda species are commonly known as a bomb or wild bergamot and monarda is named after Nicholas menardes who's a Spanish botanist in North America and he actually wrote a reference book on the medicinal value of North American native plants in 1571 now this particular monarda species like many other members of the mint family contains square stems and oppositely arranged leaves these leaves are serrated or toothed and they're longer than they are wide they're also slightly hairy this particular monarda species is growing in a very moist habitat where I'm standing right now I can tell that the ground is saturated with water many but not all monarda species do tend to grow in moist woods along stream banks and floodplains like many of the other plants that we talked about today this species can be identified based on its smell and taste as I mentioned before this monarda plant has a minty lavender / earl grey tea flavor so it'll definitely make a great addition to the broth now because this man artist species is quite potent probably not going to harvest a whole lot a little bit can go a long way so I'm probably only gonna harvest maybe five or six stems including the leaves as well put that in the basket and I'll chop that up finely before I put it into the vegetable broth so this basket now has within it two members of the celery family and then that new addition that we just added remember the mint family or the monarda species so what else will be missing well how about an Allium species this one right here this is wild garlic that's what I'll be calling it some people call it field garlic some people call it crow garlic some people call it wild onions this one's a Liam Vinny Ally it's non-native alien species here in North America so a liam is a very large genus hundreds of species in the genus many of which were familiar with cultivated onions cultivated garlic chives leeks scallions and in my opinion no vegetable stock or vegetable broth would be complete without the addition of at least one Allium species this is the one that we'll be adding to the mix ally and Vinnie Ally now this one is extremely easy to identify just based on its smell now I can't smell it right now it doesn't smell like much but once you crush the plant any part of the plant it should smell strongly of garlic that sulfur a smell now wild garlic almost looks like grass it can grow to be between one to three feet tall the leaves are semi erect then they can bend and each leaf is around in its cross-section so if you rip a leaf or bite into it look at its cross section and notice that it's round not flat and another key feature of this plant is that its bulbs have a papery outer coating that can be removed now I'm going to harvest all of this right here we'd harvest the leaves I'm gonna harvest the bulbs as well now because I'm harvesting subterranean portions I got to be mindful of dirt there's no dirt in this basket right now everything that harvested was an aerial portion and it's really really clean there's no debris on any of this and I want to keep it that way once I pull this whole thing up though I'm gonna get some dirt into the basket if I put it in there I'm going to do is put this all of this in this plastic bag then I'm going to put it into the basket I'm gonna put all of this into the soup after it's clean okay so the baskets getting full with plants we found two members of the celery family and then for the mid family remember the Allium family I told you that I'm going to look for mushrooms now I've been looking for mushrooms I don't really see too many it's getting quite cold here in Pennsylvania so you're not seeing many edible species these days but we're seeing some of the cold-weather species like these right here so this is the brick cat mushroom probably not my first choice for a vegetable broth I'm going to throw it in there because it does have a nice mushroom flavor and so this belongs to the genus - oma now worldwide there are about 30 species in the - oma genus distributed from temperate to tropical areas you'll find - oma species decomposing wood you'll find - omec species on live trees we also find them among soil and mosses in wet areas now this particular species as I mentioned is a cold-weather specie so it tends to grow autumn through winter and I got to tell you brick caps are not beginner's mushrooms they're not a beginner's mushroom definitely consult various field guides before consuming these mushrooms and go out with people who know something about Brett Cap mushrooms before we decide to harvest them because there are some species that do resemble Brit Cap mushrooms and those species can be toxic sometimes deadly toxic so key features of this mushroom include its dry Brik red cap with a paler margin and an underside comprised of closely spaced gills that are directly attached to the stock these gills are whitish at first that they become darker almost greyish purple with age as the spores mature sometimes you'll see a faint ring zone around the apex of the stem and the spore print of this mushroom is purple brown so this particular species - oval at iridium is a white rot decomposer mainly of hardwood trees but you also see it occasionally on conifer trees and as I said tends to grow during the colder months of the year I'm not going to harvest too many of these I got a nice handful right here this summer right here and honestly they're just going to come up really really easily because they're frozen to the wood so I don't even need the night kind of just break right off and I can see that the gills they were cream-colored one younger but they're turning that purplish brownish color because the spores I'm sure these are definitely brick cap mushrooms they will thaw out when I bring them home I'll chop them up and throw them into the vegetable broth so before I head back to the kitchen I thought I'd add one more plant to the mix and it's one of my favorite plants I talk about it a lot this is stinging nettle or Dakota yokai this will add a nice darker green color to the vegetable broth a lot of vitamins minerals phytochemicals ends to grow spring summer fall through early winter during the warmest parts of the year this plant can be quite formidable because of its sting and there are trichomes botanically known as trichomes or hares up and down the stalk on the leaves they have a silica tip and whatever you brush up against those trichomes of silica tip breaks and into you is injected a chemical cocktail full of various neurotransmitters and acids but this time of year this plant is relatively harmless stinging nettle is in the ER to Casey a family worldwide there are around 50 general and around 2,600 species so it's quite a large family of plants this one article dioica is fairly easy to identify beyond its stinging properties the leaves of this plant are oppositely arranged and they're serrated so the margin of each leaf has sharply pointed teeth stinging nettle grows and dense colonies connected by underground rhizomes it's usually found in sunny openings frequently along streams creeks in wet places and also in fields and disturbed areas like empty lots so I'm going to harvest a bunch of these aerial portions including the stem because again I'm going to strain everything out at the end because they're not really stinging me right now I feel comfortable not harvesting with club but if you're getting stung feel free to use gloves feel free to use scissors just can use my fingers today okay so my baskets getting full with lots of plant in some mushrooms that'll soon incorporate into the wild vegetable broth now the point of this video wasn't it tell you that you need to forge these exact species in these exact proportions to make your wild vegetable broth you can do whatever you'd like based on what you have available based on where you live I realized that you might not live where I live and have access to the same plants and mushrooms and that's perfectly fine but you probably do have wild AP ACH species where you live some wild mints and bought Allium species so feel free to experiment and see what works best for you so having said that let's go ahead to the kitchen okay now we're in the kitchen and we're going to make a vegetable broth using mostly the plants and mushrooms that we forged today keep in mind that I'm not following any particular recipe so I won't really be measuring out anything rather I'm just going to eyeball the ingredients and taste the broth periodically as it's cooking now I already made sure that everything is clean because I don't want to add soil and extraneous debris to the pot so if your ingredients are dirty definitely rinse them first so we've got a nice fruit oz mirai's Ilan just Stylus a very aromatic herb in the celery family we've got Canadian home wart crypto tinea canadensis another aromatic herb in the celery family we've got a monarda species which smells and tastes like a cross between minty lavender and Earl Grey key we've got wild garlic also known as filled garlic or wild onions this is a Liam Vinny ally as you can see I clean the bulbs and remove the papery outer skins we've got stinging nettle Erica dioica which is not stinging me right now and even if it did sting the hot water would definitely remove any signs of the sting and we have brick cap mushrooms - oma ladder idiom mostly just the caps with a little bit of stems in there as well now to increase the surface area and to create the most flavorful broth I'm going to chop all the plants and mushrooms into smaller pieces you don't have to chop them into extremely small pieces but you probably don't want to throw everything in whole either chop them up including the mushrooms and throw everything into the pot once the plants and mushrooms are in the pot I'm going to season the mix with some good-quality sea salt I know add some pepper as well instead of adding crushed pepper I'm actually going to add a few peppercorns whole and remember everything is going to be strained out at the end once the salt and pepper are added I'm now ready to add water wild harvested spring water is my water of choice so I'm going to add enough spring water to cover all the vegetables and mushrooms here I'm adding about a half gallon after stirring everything around I'll turn the heat up on the stove cover the pot with the lid and bring the liquid up to a simmering temperature so about 185 degrees Fahrenheit I don't want a rapid boil because I'll be cooking this for around 2 hours and a rapid boil is probably unnecessary after a few minutes I'll check on the broth to see if it's at a simmering temperature the vegetables and mushrooms might hang around the top of the liquid so I'll stir it around for a bit then I'll put the lid back on but I won't cover the pot all the way I'll leave it open a little because I want to reduce the liquid and concentrate it essentially making it more flavorful periodically I'll check on the broth to see how things are looking and how they're tasting and I encourage you to taste the broth as you're making it because you may find that perhaps after only an hour it's done in this case the broth was not done after an hour and I decided to keep it simmering for another 45 minutes to an hour after another hour so about two hours total I decided to check on it again as you can see the liquid is much darker and it has been reduced down and this time it tasted perfect I'll turn off the heat and allow the broth to cool down before transferring the final product to a jar in this recipe I decided to strain out the plants and mushrooms included a lot of extra fibrous material mostly the stems if you want to keep all your materials in there that's fine as well after 2 hours of cooking though you're mostly left with a lot of fiber which can be composted so I started with about a half gallon of water and I reduced everything down to about a pint of concentrated broth of course you don't have to use these proportions give it a shot yourself and see what works best for you so now you're probably wondering how does it taste Wow that's amazingly good that's one of the best vegetable broth I've ever consumed in my entire life but of course I might be biased but it's almost like you can tell that every single plant that I Forge in that mushroom is definitely in here not too strong no one flavor dominates but it's just right you know it's a really cold day of filming really cold day here in western Pennsylvania so this warm beverage is definitely going to hit the spot and I'm probably going to actually cook some potatoes with it tonight I think that's what I'm going to do I encourage you to explore your land for edible plants medicinal plants and mushrooms and once they're edible or medicinal and see if you can make some vegetable broth out of it again you don't have to use the same exact species that I use nor the proportions see what works best for you thanks so much for watching this video thanks so much for joining me today on a foraging excursion hope you learned something hope you enjoyed it you enjoyed this video encourage you to subscribe to the Learning land YouTube channel you could head on over to learning or Lancome sign up for the email newsletter we can stay in touch that way you can also follow me on social media at learn your land thanks again happy foraging [Music] you

Channel: Learn Your Land

Views: 72,394

Keywords: Adam Haritan, Learn Your Land, Mushrooms, Fungi, Foraging, Wild Plants, Edible Plants, Brick Caps, Hypholoma, Mycology, Hunting, Botany, Vegetable Broth, Cooking, Catch and Cook, Outside, Outdoors, Nature, Primitive Skills, Permaculture, Bushcraft, Aniseroot, Honewort, Monarda, Bee Balm, Allium, Stinging Nettle, Western Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania

Id: uQMFHs8Y0Ig

Length: 21min 16sec (1276 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 19 2018