We have some Fat Hen growing in the garden, courtesy of the 'Edible Leaves, Roots and Shoots' seed pack which came from Garden Organic at Ryton. Most of the plants in the pack are mainly considered weeds so I had sprinkled the seeds in a potato planter in an attempt to stop the plants from spreading too far in the garden. The most prominent leaves at the moment look like they could be Fat Hen so I read through my copy of the River Cottage 'Hedgerow' book by John Wright to see what I could do with it.

The most promising suggestion was to deep fry it and make a type of crispy seaweed. I washed and shredded the leaves then tried a couple of different versions. First I simply fried the leaves in some hot olive oil. The texture was very similar to crispy seaweed and olive-oil flavour gave it a nice edge. Restaurant seaweed often has a sweet & salty flavour so the 2nd attempt was marinated in soy sauce for a few minute before being fried. It was then sprinkled with a mixture of salt and brown sugar. This was much closer to 'real' seaweed. Since we have a lot of fat hen in the garden, it's good to know that we have a good recipe for it, and after tonight's tea we have 2 recipes.