sickpup
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dock leavesDo dock leaves have any other use than helping nettle stings, i have an abudance of them in my garden and wondered if you can eat them.
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jamanda
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Re: dock leaves | sickpup wrote: | | Do dock leaves have any other use than helping nettle stings, i have an abudance of them in my garden and wondered if you can eat them. |
Hello Sickpup. Welcome to the site.
I'd have thought the young leaves were edible - but Cab will be along to tell you for sure. Of course is more than one type of dock.
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boisdevie1
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Breed rabbits. They love them.
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nora
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If you have the little sweet dock leaves you could make Dock Pudding. (don't use the big variety though)
Traditional Recipe
Ingredients
2 lb fresh, sweet variety dock leaves (polygonum distorta)
2 large onions, or 2 large bunches of spring onions
½ lb nettles
A handful of oatmeal
A knob of butter
Salt and pepper to taste
Method
Wash and clean the dock leaves and remove the stalks
Wash and clean the nettles
Chop the onions
Fry the vegetables in the butter until tender
Add the oatmeal and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring to prevent the mixture from sticking, the pudding is then ready for eating or for storing in a sealed container
If you get good at it you can then enter the World Dock Pudding Championship in Mytholmroyd 
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cab
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Gosh... Well there are many sorts of dock, but none of the genuine dock (or docken where I come from) are particularly good to eat. They're one of those ones that a forager knows you can eat but always wonders why one would.
Some people who have a high tolerance for bitter flavours eat them and enjoy them. Give one of the leaves (pick a young and tender one) a very tentative little nibble and spit (a technique useful to foragers!), see what you think.
Some of the docks other than common (broadleaved) dock are more edible. Very young leaves of curled dock are almost enjoyable, there is a red veined one (now often sold by seed merchants, I believe that what they sell as red veined sorrel is the same plant) which is slightly more palatteable when mixed with sweeter salad leaves (and looks great), and the regrettably rather rare monks rhubarb is better.
As always with these polygonaceae, don't gorge yourself with it. Its rather like rhubarb or sorrel; in theory if you binge on it then the oxalic acid becomes toxic.
Docks make the occasional appearance on our dinner table. Not so fond of the dock puddings myself, but I'll add a leaf in with lettuce and wild herbs in a risotto, for example.
Do I remember correctly that Gil made dock wine? Or did I dream that up?
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gil
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| cab wrote: | | Do I remember correctly that Gil made dock wine? Or did I dream that up? |
You must have dreamt it
I did make Sorrel, and also Ground Elder.
Young dock leaves can be cooked, and are supposed to go well with ham dishes. Never fancied em meself.
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RichardW
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Goats love em fresh or dried
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