Jess Murphy's Spud Focaccia is the Wild Garlic Recipe You Need this Spring

Spring is the season of wild garlic, and here in Galway, we’re lucky to have plenty of spots where you can forage the fragrant, punchy green. You'll no doubt start seeing it popping up on restaurant menus across the west, but have you tried cooking with it? Now is the perfect time to celebrate this seasonal gem by trying something new in the kitchen.

Known as creamh as Gaeilge, wild garlic is a member of the allium family, and is closely related to other pungent plants like garlic, onions and chives.

Where to pick wild garlic in Galway

Wild garlic can be found growing in shady woodlands and along quiet trails — just follow your nose. Favourite spots include Connemara National Park, Barna Woods, Coole Park, near Menlo Castle, off the trail in Merlin Woods and out to Renville in Oranmore - basically damp and shady woodland is ideal. Never pick near or around main roads.

Wild garlic foraging tips

It's important to bear in mind some basic foraging etiquette when picking your wild garlic: avoid picking all the leaves from plants, only pick what you need and leave the rest untouched.

Not sure if you've found the right thing? Pick a small leaf and rub it between your hands – you're looking for a distinctive garlic smell.

Jess Murphy's Spud Focaccia with Wild Garlic Pesto

"This was a happy little accident (yes, I did just quote Bob Ross)," says Kai's Chef Patron Jess Murphy, founder of Hapi Bakery. "We’re always flat out cooking potatoes – as you should be – but one time someone cooked more than usual and I said to Molly, ‘Christ on a bike, what are we gonna do with all these potatoes?’ They were Arran Victories from An Garraí Glas, the most sought-after spud in Connemara, so Molly and I came up with the idea of double carb-loading and pushing the steamed beauties into a focaccia dough, then brushing it with a wild garlic pesto. It’s now one of our best-selling loaves."

You'll need

For the focaccia - makes 1 large loaf

500g strong white flour
400ml + 50ml lukewarm water
½ x 7g sachet of fast-action dried yeast (or 9g fresh yeast)
1 tbsp salt, plus extra for the spuds
olive oil
2 potatoes, left whole and unpeeled
wild garlic pesto (page 201)

For the wild garlic pesto - makes one small jar

100g fresh wild garlic
50g Parmesan cheese, chopped
50g pine nuts
80ml extra-virgin olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Mix your flour and 400ml of the water in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment until fully combined. Allow to autolyse (which is just a fancy word for rest) for 30 minutes.

When the 30 minutes are almost up, whisk your yeast into the remaining 50ml lukewarm water. Allow to stand for 5–10 minutes, until the yeast is nice and frothy.

Add the yeast mixture to the autolysed flour mixture and knead for 5 minutes, then add the salt and knead for a further 5 minutes. The dough will be very wet.

Now do your first fold. Starting at the 12 o’clock position, pull the dough up to stretch it, then pull it down over the dough in the bowl to the 6 o’clock position. Give the bowl a quarter turn and repeat this stretch and fold three more times. At this stage, the dough should be as puffy as a middle-aged woman’s FUPA.

Cover the container with a clean tea towel. Rest the dough for 10 minutes, then repeat this process three more times. The dough should have built up some strength and should be bubbly by the final fold. Cover with the tea towel and prove for 1½ hours, until the dough has doubled in volume.

In between all this folding and resting, cook your whole, unpeeled potatoes in lightly salted boiling water for 20–25 minutes, until a knife glides through easily. Drain and allow to cool, then cut them into bite-sized chunks, toss in oil and season with salt.

Line a rectangular baking tin with non-stick baking paper and oil the paper. Transfer the dough to the lined tin. Lightly stretch it out into a rectangle, then cover the tin with a tea towel and allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes. Scatter the spuds on top of the focaccia and let it rest for a final 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 220°C.

Bake your focaccia in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Once it’s out of the oven, immediately take the focaccia out of the lined tin and put it on a wire rack to avoid a soggy bottom. Brush the top with the wild garlic pesto. Allow to cool, then cut into squares to serve.

Taken from The Kai Cookbook by Jess Murphy (Nine Bean Rows). Photography by Nathalie Marquez Courtney.