Over the last few months I decided I wanted to start foraging. I have the knowledge to identify the plants correctly (which is a very important part of foraging), so I had no reason not to try it. My best friend Molly, who some of you might have met on my walks, is trying to live more sustainably and I am her guinea pig when it comes to new recipes and ideas. She’s the better cook and has a better imagination when it comes to recipes, I know how to identify the plant we need. It’s a win-win. From that we came up with the idea of comparing foraging recipes over the next couple of weeks and putting them on our blogs. So we decided to start with something easy- gorse flower cordial.
When picking any wild food there are a few things to keep in mind: it is important to identify the plant correctly, if you are not 100% sure, don’t use it. The second point is to ask the land owners permission to pick the plant (if it is not on public land). Thirdly, make sure that the plant has not been contaminated with anything especially herbicides or for example if it is near a footpath, that a dog has not peed on it or people have walked on it.
Gorse (Ulex europaeus) (also called furze or whin in some part of the country) can be found growing in many places around the country, usually in upland, scrubland and peatland areas. It is a native Irish shrub and can sometimes be found planted in gardens or found in many hedgerows along fields. Gorse has some flowers most of the year, but the main flowering period is February to May. It has bright yellow pea-like flowers which are about 2cm long and smell of vanilla and coconut. They always remind me of Bounty bars. Its leaves are blue/green spikes with little grooves in them. This is to prevent them from losing water from its leaves in harsh, windy winters.
I live on the outskirts of Dublin and found some growing along the coast. It is best to pick gorse flowers on a sunny day, so the flavour is at its strongest. I picked them on a very wet day, but it still worked fine, the flavour was just not as strong. The best time of year to pick the flowers is when the most flowers are available (February to May). At this time of year, the new leaves are unfolding and haven’t hardened into spikes yet, making it easier to pick the flowers.
I found the recipe below on this great foraging website. They suggested using lemon juice, but I only had an orange in the house, so this is the result…
For the cordial you will need:
- 4 handfuls of gorse flowers
- 600ml cold water
- 250g sugar (I used granulated white sugar)
- Zest of 1 orange
- Juice of 1 orange
Step 1:
Mix the water and sugar in a pot and bring it to the boil. Boil for 10 minutes and remove from the heat.
Step 2:
Add the orange juice, gorse flowers and orange zest to the sugar water. Cover and leave to soak overnight (about 10-12 hours).
Step 3:
Strain the liquid through muslin (if you don’t have this you can use a fine meshed sieve and then sieve it through a clean tea towel) into a clean jug.
Step 4:
Pour the liquid into a sterilised bottle and cap (you can Google how to sterilise bottles, it’s easy). You should have about 500-600ml of gorse cordial.
Step 5:
To make a lovely drink out of this, dilute it 10:1 water:gorse cordial.
Store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
When comparing my recipe to Molly’s recipe, mine won in a blind taste test. Woohoo!! That being said, mine was said to be very sweet (it might just need to be diluted more) and Molly’s tasted better with rum. For Molly’s recipe and how to serve it with alcohol, check out her recipe here. Why not try both recipes and let us know which one you prefer?
Wildflower Walks Ireland 
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