Name: Wild Milkweed Sauce Rémoulade
Total time: 10 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: 150 ml mayonnaise; 14 pickled milkweed pods, minced (reserve 6-8 whole pods for finishing garnish); 1 large pinch chopped italian parsley; 10 ml prepared wild mustard; 1 squeeze fresh lemon juice

Here is an easy way to put an wild twist on a classic french favourite.

Sauce rémoulade is a classic of the french kitchen that has been adapted and used in different forms around the world for over 100 years. This creamy mayonnaise based condiment has held it’s spot as a top sauce for fried fish and crab cakes.

One of the beauties of this sauce is it’s flexibility toward adaptation. Starting with mayonnaise as a base, the chef can then make the sauce spicy, sweet, tangy or herbal depending on the dish it is to be served with. In Louisiana, the rémoulade is of made with chiles, it can also be made with a pinch of curry powder, which I find works very well crab cakes.

Here, I add a bit of Canadian wild foraged food to do my part in the evolution of a classic. Enter wild Canadian milkweed pods! Milkweed grows in Southern Ontario and Québec and is a food source not only for humans but also butterflies! The monarch butterfly prefers to eat the plants leaves. It’s nice knowing that we are not competing with butterflies.

The pods that we get to eat are lightly pickled in a sweet and sour tarragon-black pepper pickling solution, these tender unopened flowers of the milkweed aka. Asclepias plant, make a wonderful complement to fish dishes. The sweet and tangy flavour lends it way very nicely in mayonnaise based sauces. Pickled wild milkweed pods work great straight from the jar and onto the plate served with sandwiches, salads, smoked meats and fish and the unusual looking pods make a wow! statement when used as garnish. In this recipe, I use some pods chopped up and folded into mayonnaise to make a tangy tartar style sauce that is super versatile and will get your guests attention. Make sure to save some whole ones for show and tell!