Last year I harvested and dried some silverweed roots. Since it is coming up to harvest season again, I decided now was the time to have a play experiment with the dried roots.
I decided to try grinding the roots into flour and see what I could do with that. I first tried crushing the dried roots with the end of my wooden rolling pin, but they are much too hard. Maybe a heavy stone mortar or quernstone might work. I have a manual coffee grinder which I then thought would be the best thing I have to grind the roots with, and that seemed to work well.
silverweed roots in coffee grinder
It took a little while to get the settings right on the grinder as this was the first time I used it. Every so often a lump of root would come through unground and I had to put it through again. But eventually I had a small amount of fine flour.
fine flour from silverweed roots
There wasn't enough to do much baking with, so I decided to try and make pancakes. I added half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, a tablespoon of honey, and mixed in enough yoghurt to make a stiff batter. I had trouble with the mixture sticking to the griddle, but succeeded in making some palatable, but messy pancakes (or bannock!)
silverweed bannocks
Since I was struggling so much I decided to try baking the remaining batter. I portioned it into a shallow jam tart tray and baked it in the oven for about 20 minutes. I think the over may have been a bit hot, as the cakes browned on the outside, but were still sticky in the centre.
sticky centre to silverweed cakes
I moved the tray down to a cooler spot and gave them another 15 minutes and they were much better cooked.
So I suspect that a bit of fat would make the batter cook better without sticking. The flour didn't seem to be as fine as corn (maize) flour - it mixed up without that thixotropic stage that you get (although maybe the yoghut affected that?) The baked cakes were fairly tough on the outside but spongy inside, so I think adjusting the temperature would help a lot there. They tasted fine though and after a few days they are just a little stale - OK with jam!
I think I'd like to try it with butter or other fat to make a pastry next time, also to use some as a thickener for sauce or stew.
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