Chickweed chimichurri, local greens

April 9, 9:47 AMSeattle Sustainable Foods ExaminerPatricia Eddy

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Chickweed. It sounds like something you should be pulling up out of my garden and throwing in the yardwaste bin. But really, it’s an herb with numerous potential benefits. It is high in Vitamin A, D, B complex, and C. It’s also rich in iron, calcium, potassium, phosphorous, zinc, and manganese. Much like stinging nettles, chickweed is good to cleanse the digestive system (but with no annoying side effects) and is a very mild diuretic. It helps kidney function and can also help arthritis.

You can pick up a bag of chickweed from Nash’s Organic Produce. The taste is interesting. Much like nettles, chickweed tastes very green. It’s fresh, clean, and mild. Unlike nettles, you can eat it raw (like for salads) or cooked in a soup.

Smoked Salmon with Chickweed Chimichurri adapted from Nash’s Organic Produce

• 1/2 cup chickweed (or a good solid handful)
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 small leek
• 4-6 cloves of garlic
• 1 crushed red chili pepper (or some Zane and Zack ’s spicy rub)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Smoked salmon
• Crackers or a Tall Grass Bakery baguette for serving

Slice the salmon thinly.

Cut the baguette into thin slices.

Chop the chickweed, mince the leeks, and the garlic.

Mix chickweed, leeks, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, red pepper, and salt in a bowl.

Serve the cracker or baguette slice topped with a bit of the smoked salmon and the chickweed chimichurri.

Results: As much as I love smoked salmon, I admit that raw tuna would have been perfect for this. However, I just wasn’t willing to buy tuna from Fiji, so we made due. The chimichurri was fantastic. It could have done with just a shade less of the olive oil and the lemon juice. I used more than the quarter teaspoon of sea salt, which I think was the right call. I enjoyed this straight on the baguette slices, even without the salmon. There was absolutely nothing wrong with using smoked salmon in this recipe, but I do think tuna would have given the dish a ‘cleaner’ taste all around.