Warm Salad of Poppy Greens

My first trip to the organic market this spring was a revelation. I regularly shop from farmers at the Friday market in Sapanca and have gotten to know producers that sell at a handful of weekly markets in Istanbul. So I though I was very close to getting the kind of food my grandparents used to grow in their beautiful garden. I was mistaken. Ah, the Turkish agriculture developments.. I have almost forgotten that beets come in whimsical shapes and have greens, that carrots don’t mean intense orange color, that artichokes are small and come unpeeled in all their formidable beauty, that leafy greens are not the size of a pillow case and that baby spinach is not an oxymoron in Turkey.

Needless to say, I went wild and returned home with a few bags on each shoulder and a few in each hand. And then I recalled another truth: organically grown produce is a serious effort that does not stop in the field or garden. I spent a while on planning what to do with all the roots and tops that came attached to what I bought. As I was carrying the celeriac with 60 cm long stalks crowned by the luscious greens I was wondering what - again - I can do with this delicious and yet fairly strong-tasting part of the celeriac. And I spent an hour soaking and washing the produce that comes with pieces of soil and tiny bugs.

My kitchen turned into a production line. I was washing greens and herbs and preparing fermented cabbage, beet kvas and Moroccan-style preserved lemons. The post-market lunch had to be quick, and so it was with a warm salad I made with gelencik otu, greens of a poppy flower, from Zonguldak on the Black Sea coast. Yes, I feel pretty blessed to live in a huge city and have access to the wild greens like that.

Turkish poppy flowers are similar to the poppies in Europe that are often called corn poppy or field poppy. Gelencik otu looks a bit like arugula (rocket salad) with more pointy leaves and has slightly fuzzy stems; it smells of freshly cut green grass and taste pleasant without bitterness of the similarly looking dandelion.

Poppy greens are edible before the pods form as afterwards the leaves contain addictive morphine. In Turkey gelencik otu has enjoyed both culinary and medical use. Its infusions cure breathing problems, in particular asthma, bronchitis and whooping cough as well as known to heal the burns and help with the bladder and kidney stones. Also, when used externally, poppy green infusion helps preventing skin aging.

When it comes to cooking gelencik otu, as with all the greens in Turkey - wild or not, the most common methods are sauteing them and then maybe adding an egg or turning them into a börek filling. I prefer the Aegean style when the greens are served raw or blanched with a vinaigrette that screams olive oil and lemon (and occasionally, garlic).

I wanted to do something different with these ones, and so I created this warm salad featuring the treasures from the market - humble carrots, zesty scallions, fragrant cilantro and the gelencik otu in question. I paired them with spices and was surprised to see how differently they “sounded” from the traditional wild green dish you’d see around.

Why am I sharing the recipe of this wild green that is considered exotic even in Turkey? I do so in the hope that wherever you live you will make a trip to a farmer’s market this week, check the offerings of the greens and buy one you have never cooked before. And if you are in Turkey, I hope that you will definitely look out for the wild greens growing around and sold at the weekly pazars of the country. To prepare you fully, besides the recipe I am also sharing the tips on buying, washing and storing greens of all sorts. To leave you no excuse.

Buying greens

The other day I was stumbled upon çireş (yellow lily), a wild green I saw for the first time. Another women shopping at the same stall looked at me in bewilderment as I was picking the ones I liked. “How do you even know which ones to choose?” the woman of my mother’s age asked. I felt on a mission when explaining her my approach, and I will share it with you.

Think of greens as a manifestation of spring and beginning of the cycle in the nature. That beginning has to be live and kicking, and so should be your greens: vivid green color, lively and resilient leaves, stems that don’t bend as you hold a bunch upwards (with a few exceptions of the tender creations such as cilantro) and no sign of fading. If the greens you buy fit the description, they will keep longer in your fridge too.

Washing greens

I always wash the greens after I bring them home. I fill a large basin with water and soak the greens for 10 minutes or so. Some recommend soaking the greens in a vinegar solution (e.g. Cooks Illustrated suggest 1 cup vinegar to 3 cups water) to kill bacteria; some even say that vinegar removes pesticides from the non-organic greens.

It’s best not to cut the greens before soaking as the cutting will force leaching of the water-soluble nutrients, which of course happens anyways to a certain degree during the soaking, yet instead of theorizing about the degree of this degree we all should eat more greens and stop cluttering our minds.

Soaking is especially important if you are planning to eat your greens raw. As you are rinsing them, you will see tiniest bugs at the bottom of the basin. Bugs in greens are like worms in apples - always a good sign. But they are not ideal for eating, and these guys will be hard to remove by simple rinsing.

If you deal with a green that still has a root attached to it (e.g. spinach), first rinse the visible dirt, soak and then rinse and wash in 2-3 changes of water to make sure there are no particles of soil (and bugs) remaining in the water. You can use a salad spinner to dry the herbs or arrange them on a kitchen towel and cover with another one to dry.

Storing greens

I have experimented a lot with that: I usually buy a variety of greens, and I am rarely able to eat them quickly enough. I hate seeing them losing vitality after a few days. I now wrap the washed greens in a kitchen towel (Turkish medium size cotton pestemals are my best friends in that business) and place the wrap in a plastic container with a tight lead. This way my greens can last for a week.

Now, if you know you will not be able to finish them all within a week, you should consider drying or freezing some (better than killing them). I have written about drying greens and turning them into a go-to seasoning. To freeze, I chop herbs such as dill or parsley and then use them to make fritters or börek fillings. As for the leafy greens, I freeze them whole: I arrange them in a few stacks and divide among a couple of freezer bags so I don’t need to defrost a huge bag if I only need a small quantity.

Warm Salad of Poppy Greens

You can use absolutely any other green - cultivated or edible wild - in this recipe. It’s worth remembering that poppy greens don’t release much water during the cooking (just like malva leaves/ebegümeci) and hence will take less time to cook to a salad state, while spinach, chard or kale may take longer since they contain more liquid.

Serves 4 (as a main)

Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 20 min

Ingredients

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil + more for serving
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground clove
3 medium carrots, very thinly sliced
4 scallion, white parts finely chopped and green parts coarsely chopped
2 fresh green garlic, white parts finely chopped and green parts coarsely chopped
400 g poppy greens, including the stems, very roughly chopped
1/3 cup coarsely chopped cilantro

Directions

Get all your ingredients absolutely ready before you start cooking the dish - it cooks in a flash and there would be no room to fetching or chopping something. Warm up the olive oil in a large skillet on a medium heat (I use a wok for this task). Toss in the mustard seeds, ground nutmeg and clove. As the mustard seeds start cracking, add the thinly sliced carrot and coat well in the mix of oil and spice. Let the carrots soften a bit (3-4 min) and then add the white parts of the scallions and fresh green garlic. Cook for another 2 or so minutes, or until the onion-garlic smell reaches your nostrils. Now it’s time to stir in the poppy greens. Move them around the pan a few times so they can wilt faster. Right after that add the green parts of the garlic and onion, the cilantro and let everything cook together for another 3-5 minutes, or until the poppy leaves are soft and the stems still retain a bit of crunch. Serve immediately, drizzled with more olive oil if desired.