What to expect from this podcast episode
Discover in this episode of the Flora and Friends Podcast
- How you can use nasturtium in your cooking
- How you can grow it in your garden
- What kind of molecules there are in nasturtium
Mona Prestele from Prestele’s trädgårdscafé shares her expertise with growing and using nasturtium in the kitchen.
Judith adds to this some recent research on the benefits of molecules inside nasturtium and how they are explored for medical use.
The spectacular greenhouse with a frozen nasturtium carpet
For this episode Judith has visited Mona at Prestele’s trädgårdscafé in Västerbotten, in the North of Sweden. At the moment of visit back in November, we had just had the first really frosty nights. The carpet of nasturtium in Mona’s greenhouse that had been beautifully flowering from July to these frosty nights, had turned into a spectacular ocean of frozen, dead nasturtium. Quite a scene in the soft November sun. To fully enjoy this magic, Mona put up a beautiful coffee-corner with her tasty home-baked pastries. Our cushion covers brought in the colour that the nasturtiums couldn’t deliver at this moment.
Nasturtium recipes
As Mona mentions in the interview, Nasturtium has a peppery taste, resembling horseradish, that goes well with fish, meat and with salads. Both flowers and leaves of nasturtium can be used to decorate your food. The best way to conserve the beneficial effects it to eat it fresh, but of course you can also for varying its taste include it into stews, or even make pesto from it. Even the seeds can be used and are known as “poor man’s capers”.
We have collected some recipes for you (and us!) to try it out when summer comes and nasturtium has grown again in our gardens. Join us from your garden or balcony with a tasty nasturtium salad waiting for the flickering of the nasturtium flowers to get visible at dusk on a summer night.
