Finally! The daffodils in the park, the camelia & the magnolia down in the garden, the birds cheerfully chirping away in the morning.. spring!! … AND I found barba di frate (also called agretti) at one of my local semi-posh greengrocers (Newington Green Grocers-reccomended).
Barba di frate a.k.a. friar’s beard or agretti, is a green, slender vegetable, that looks like over-grown chives and tastes a bit like spinach and sorrel, but with a more metallic, mineral undertone. It is slightly bitter and also acidula ( a tiny bis sour, but on the pleasant side of sourness).
It has a very short season between March and April – it is one the real harbingers of spring, alongside forced rhubarb and nespole .
I find it particularly delicious simply steamed and dressed with olive oil and lemon or ripassata in padella with oil and garlic (that is: steamed and sautéed with oil and garlic) and/or tomatoes. I have also used it to dress spaghetti (carbonara-style: with eggs, cooked pancetta, Parmigiano, butter + steamed barba di frate) and in frittata. If in doubt or searching for inspiration, wherever you would use spinach or sorrel, barba di frate can be an unusual, succulent alternative.
In Italy is very popular and you can find it in street markets and supermarkets, in the UK it still a niche product. Here in London, I found it in good ethnic greengrocers (generally Turkish & at reasonable prices) or in posh (and expensive) shops. I paid £2.95 per bunch (which makes for one large portion): not cheap of course, but affordable; I have also seen it for sale at the formidable, eye-watering sum of £ 4.95 per bunch!
I had it for lunch few days ago, with good, fresh ricotta and Sicilian winter Marinda tomatoes (they are a recent winter variety, with good flavor and texture).
Notes:
On fruit and vegetables: if u live in London: do check the Newington Green grocers, they have good stuff, like barba di frate, puntarelle, radicchio di Treviso, cime di rapa. Their prices are not too bad generally and their produce is of good quality most of the time.
On ricotta: if u live in London: I have found good, fresh ricotta (not the supermarket pap-style thing) at a very good cheese shop: Provisions Cheese and Wine in Holloway Rd (good price too: £ 4/300 g, which is acceptable, considering that in Borough Market I have seen fresh ricotta for £ 25-bliping £ 25 !!! per kg
Italian home cooking 
The agretti are now back at NG Fruit & Veg for 2018, still at fairly reasonable price. I had some last night in a risotto with Morecambe Bay brown shrimp – a marriage made in heaven. Have just come across your site having searched for La Genovese recipes – something my Neapolitan grandmother cooked (in the somewhat more traditional stove-top manner). Yours makes sense, I will try it. I sty at my parents’ in law in NG for work during the week, Devon/Dorset border is home at weekends – but I never knew of you restaurant in Lyme Regis, more’s the pity, or I would have tried it. I suppose these things are very had work, not always for an appreciative or knowledgeable audience, so I can understand that cooking with smaller groups might be less stressful. The wild garlic is just coming up, after the battering from the Beast from the East… Anyway, I enjoyed reading your blog, all the best.
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Hi James, thanks for leaving a comment. envy yr abundant wild garlic, something not easy to find here in London and an ingredient that, used judiciously, can add a nice touch to few dishes.
agretti: I am expecting to see them in good conditions for few weeks more..
(sorry: what is NG?) La genovese: I found a tricky one to pull: I love the sauce but I do not care much for the overspent meat + according to old, traditional recipes the sauce should really be dark and glossy, which require a really long cooking
let me know how if u r happy with yr version
ciao
stefano (apologies for replying this late, yr message slipped my radar)
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Sorry, NG = Newington Green. The Turkish veg shop there is very good – agretti, puntarelle, scarola, rappa, various types of radicchio all there at the moment. I made La Genovese following your recipe – used point end brisket on the bone and left it overnight in the oven. I laid a piece of pork skin on the bottom of the pan to protect the sauce, which gave added unctuousness, but meant lots of fat needed to be skimmed off the sauce. The meat stayed moist and tender but frankly the sauce is so rich (my wife, eating it for the first time, said it reminded her slightly of onion marmalade) that a bowl of pasta followed by a bitter salad is all you need. You suggestion for stuffing fresh pasta with some of the meat is a good one, and point end of brisket shreds easily so is well suited to this. I froze quite a bit with this in mind.
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ciao James…ah NG… 🙂 …silly of me… … I might be wrong, but I think they are Kurds… hence,, calling them Turkish.. might be dangerous 🙂 + yes: he (the boss) is very good, with a good eye for stuff: I have been buying all the things u mention (and I am always surprised how much I manage to spend there/having said that last time I bought some lovely rhubarb from them, the price was pretty good-cheaper than waitrose). I am grateful they are there, then I also acknowledge that is up to us buyer to keep our eyes open and not buy things that are not at their best, considering some of the prices (I have found it is much better to go mid week, I think they have deliveries tuesdays and fridays.. but I might remember incorrectly)(I could not bring myself to buy the wonderful looking but cringingly expensive radicchio di castelfranco though: it looked gorgeous but oh, my lord…)….
t
hanks for yr feedback on the Genovese: I will take notes + what u say make sense, a lot of sense; yr wife is correct: that’s how the sauce should be… super oniony and dark and luscious… I might pop down Turner and George and buy some point end of Brisket. The piece of pork skin is something Richard Olney reccomended in few of his stew recipes: well done + thanks for reminding me about it
stef
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I’m always up for a simple dish like this and steamed bitter greens swimming in olive oil and lemon are always welcomed on my plate…happy feasting!
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I love agretti – I first tasted it just wilted and buttered with lemon at the excellent Bocca di Lupo in Soho (London) and I love its fresh, clean taste. Never thought of growing it, but it’s an excellent idea as I’ve never seen it in grocers here and a trip to Stoke Newington just for monk’s beard is a bit TOO North London even for me …
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here u go… a new business idea “deb’s splend &rare vegs and fruits”!
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I’ve never heard of agretti. I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled, because it sounds good.
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… Saint Amazon is always a nice saint worth checking and asking to.. it generally delivers 🙂
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Here in the States it’s not even a niche product. I’ve never been able to find them anywhere. Argh!!!
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I have the impression that u guys in the States might have a potential business: The Agretti Company – supplier of precious greens to the restaurants and the public
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I can grow it! Yes. I will find some seed – thank you it sounds tasty – we need those deep greens at this time of year.. c
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… yes, I saw the seeds on amazon…I wonder how easy-difficult it is to grow them… (but then u have Mayer lemon that are virtually non existent here in the UK- Justice does exist, more or less)
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I am going to talk to some of my farmer friends here in Santa Cruz and see if anyone grows agretti . After all, our town was settled by Italians.
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Ciao Gerlinde… agretti is really sought after here by restaurants so I would not be surprised if it is grown also in the US…. u can find the seeds on line for sure, if u want to try and grow it yourself 🙂 off to check yr blog now 🙂
stefano
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I doubt I’ll ever find that here, so it just means I need to plan a trip across the pond in spring! I do so love the spring culinary rituals. Here we have ramps (wild garlic really). Old books talk about the hungry time before they come. Everyone so ready for winter to be over and to have something fresh and green again.
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ah… the angry/hungry gap!… when we had the restaurant this time of the year was really bad for the kitchen.. nothing available (I mean, nothing home grown…), apart from wild garlic… 🙂 which grew abundantly outside my kitchen… I love the stuff but there is a limit to how many ways u can use it…. now that I am in London, I miss it: I used to gather it in big fistful, here in London it goes at £ 2 per small bunch!
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I have never seen Barba di Frate for sale here in the States, but perhaps I wasn’t looking? I would love to try this, and envy your wonderful markets in London. When I was there at the New Year, I didn’t even mind paying Borough Market prices for things I never see here.
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ciao david… I suspect that in some farmers’ market barba di frate (agretti) could be found – generally the US farmers’ market scene is rather cool from what I read (and should u have an eataly nearby, I would not be surprised if they sold it – prices to check, of course)… ah! so u were in London recently… Borough Market is a beautiful place, no doubt. It is also very expensive often, but this is the case with most of London, especially when it comes to food. Of course this immediately makes food into a class thing, dividing people who have money to spare on quality and (the majority) who can, at best, afford supermarket stuff, which, very often, is rather boring and limited (unless shopping in waitress, the ferrari of uk supermarket).From my Italian point of view I sometimes despair at the produce I can (or cannot) find here: either very poor or outrageously expensive. there are some good farmers’ market, but, all in all, food, food production and consumption has become a big social problem here in the UK, where obesity is in the rise and the gap between a top, high spending elite and the rest of country has widened. sorry, I am in a fighting mood today 🙂 s
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ciao stefan
on home made ricotta-style fresh cheese: yes, thanks,,, I have tried many, many times and in fact when I had the restaurant we also made it to use in desserts and savories. It is a good alternative but, from my Italian point of view, I have to be honest, I cannot say it is as nice as real ricotta, especially when eaten by itself: the curds are never, in my experience, as soft and delicate in taste as real ricotta. I have tried many versions, with different acids and I got the best results from the recipe by american food writer rosetta costantino (she uses rennet). Using full fat milk and cream, the results are delicious but much heavier than real ricotta and I did not like the results using semi-skimmed milk. I am no expert, but I think that there must be something in the whey (degradation of milk proteins?) that makes ricotta what it is: creamy and yet light, tender.
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Have not seen agretti here, but will look out.
As for ricotta, why not make your own? Very easy and cheap. https://stefangourmet.com/2012/07/25/home-made-ricotta/
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