Give me your take on how to prepare Fiddlehead ferns

I will be serving as a main dish for my May tasting braised short ribs of beef. They will be served Osso bucco style with gremolata and sliced beef marrow. I would like to serve the fiddlehead ferns as a side dish. I have not made them in 40 years. Any ideas would be great. The wines served will be Hermitage Domaine Jean Louis Chave 2005, Chateaunuf du pape Les Cailloux 2005 Cuvee Centenaire, Cote Rotie Ogier 2004. All three wines will be served at the same time in three Riedel Cabernet Vinum glasses. Does any one know how many coils I would get in 1 lb? I only need about 40.

Thanks in advance for sharing all your knowledge


Gary

I will be serving as a main dish for my May tasting braised short ribs of beef. They will be served Osso bucco style with gremolata and sliced beef marrow. I would like to serve the fiddlehead ferns as a side dish. I have not made them in 40 years. Any ideas would be great. The wines served will be Hermitage Domaine Jean Louis Chave 2005, Chateaunuf du pape Les Cailloux 2005 Cuvee Centenaire, Cote Rotie Ogier 2004. All three wines will be served at the same time in three Riedel Cabernet Vinum glasses. Does any one know how many coils I would get in 1 lb? I only need about 40.

Gary,
Fiddleheads function much as asparagus does, expect they won't mess with your wine as much. So, maybe sauté them in butter or oven roast them in olive oil. As to how many you'd get in a lb, I'd guess (without any real knowledge) not much more than 2 dozen. The ones I see around here are fairly large, though, so if yours are smaller, you'd obviously get more.

Mark Lipton

p.s. Do you always serve your wines so young? I'd be hanging onto all those pups for another decade+, but YMMV of course.

I will be serving as a main dish for my May tasting braised short ribs of beef. They will be served Osso bucco style with gremolata and sliced beef marrow. I would like to serve the fiddlehead ferns as a side dish. I have not made them in 40 years. Any ideas would be great. The wines served will be Hermitage Domaine Jean Louis Chave 2005, Chateaunuf du pape Les Cailloux 2005 Cuvee Centenaire, Cote Rotie Ogier 2004. All three wines will be served at the same time in three Riedel Cabernet Vinum glasses. Does any one know how many coils I would get in 1 lb? I only need about 40.

Gary,
Fiddleheads function much as asparagus does, expect they won't mess with your wine as much. So, maybe sauté them in butter or oven roast them in olive oil. As to how many you'd get in a lb, I'd guess (without any real knowledge) not much more than 2 dozen. The ones I see around here are fairly large, though, so if yours are smaller, you'd obviously get more.

Mark Lipton

p.s. Do you always serve your wines so young? I'd be hanging onto all those pups for another decade+, but YMMV of course.

Mark,
I would prefer to hang on to the wines also. The issues are finding the wine, making sure of proper storage, and cost. I only have $2100 for the tasting with around $500 going for food for 10 people. I am leary of buying wine on the internet for fear of a tainted $300 bottle that I can not get credit on. We will decant the wines an serve at the correct temp and hope for the best.

Gary

The way we handle Fiddelheads around here, and we have zillions of them, is to let them grow into ferns. Eating them? Yuk!

No need to buy fiddleheads by the weight; tell the vendor you want 40 heads!

I have only made them a few times. I seem to recall that they need to be blanched briefly in order to pull some bitterness out of them. Drain, then treat like any green, i.e., saute in butter and garlic, casserole them with cheese and cream. Best if they keep a bit of crunch, sez me.

While I've generally done the blanch and then saute with garlic method, I really liked a dish I did tonight. Put fiddleheads into boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain, cool. Grilled some french horn mushrooms. Made a dressing of soy sauce, grated garlic, ponzu, and sesame oil. Toss mushrooms and ferns, sprinkle with sesame.
I love fiddlehead/ramp season. Unfortunately I think no shad roe this year.