I LOVE CAPERS in pasta, salads and sauces but, I don’t like the fact that they are quite expensive and imported. I PREFER TO BUY LOCAL whenever I can.

Capers are the buds of the caper bush (caper-berries are the fruit) and grows readily in Mediterranean countries – mostly out of rock walls. It has a very pretty flower, but you hardly ever find a plant with lots of buds and flowers as they are scavenged by the locals and pickled in brine at home – it’s a fairly laborious process.

Jobs to do before the taverna opens. Freshly picked caper buds being sorted outside a taverna in Sifnos, Greece

THEY SAY THAT NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION so I was very happy to come across this recipe for ‘false capers’ in a book of early Australian cooking that is over 150 years old. They don’t taste like capers – they taste like pickled nasturtium seeds, but they are surprisingly good and are a fantastic substitute.

The very pretty caper bush, growing where it is happiest – out of the rocks of a coastal cliff in the Mediterranean. In this case on the island of Corfu Below it, the green feathery plant is rock samphire – another wild food that is a highly desirable part of Greek cuisine, particularly in the springtime when it is served pickled as a side dish to fish and drunk with icy cold ouzo. Now to our substitute – pickled nasturtium seeds.

HOW TO PROCESS THE NASTURTIUM SEEDS:

After the blossom falls off, pick the half-ripened (still green) nasturtium seeds. Drop them in a boiled, strained and cooled mixture of the following pickling mixture.

RECIPE

500ml white wine vinegar

2 teaspoons sea salt

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

10 peppercorns

1/2 teaspoon fennel/dill seed

Nasturtium seeds – just ripe for pickling!

METHOD

Simmer ingredients together in saucepan, cool and strain into sealable jar. Add nasturtium seeds. They will be ready to eat in a couple of weeks or so and will keep in the fridge for up to a year. They are ready to eat when they sink into the liquid. You can keep adding to the liquid pickle mix as you pick the seeds – how easy is that?

NASTURTIUM – Tropoleum majus. This is one of those common garden plants that tends to get overlooked, but I love it because it has so many uses and is incredibly easy to grow and manage.

It’s name comes from the Latin nasus tortus ‘twisted nose’ which is the effect it’s pepperiness has on your nose when you eat it or crush it underfoot – are you beginning to love it?

Here are some of its uses:

1. Groundcover: As a colourful creeping, flowering carpet that gives a soft ‘cottage garden’ look. Nasturtium grows well in the subtropics and does best through the cooler months and in semi-shade. It prefers sandy soils, but is adaptable to most soil types – in fact, the poorer the soil the more flowers you get. Their vibrant, sunny colours make it a lovely cut flower.

2. Living Mulch: Useful as a ‘filler’ plant in tricky areas – like steep banks and around fruit trees to prevent weed invasion/erosion/drying out. Once you plant it, you never have to do so again as it seeds and re-grows freely but, it is not invasive and easy to pull out. Any plants in unwanted spots just go straight in the compost.

3. Food: Every part of this plant is edible!! Young leaves are used in salads and contain high amounts of Vitamin C (older leaves become too peppery) – I like to use them on sandwiches – they fit well. Flowers can be eaten whole or as an addition to a mesclun salad. An old gardener once told me that he ate a Nasturtium flower every day as a natural antibiotic. (He is the same one that told me that lavender oil kept ticks away – and he was right about that).

4. Companion Plant: Nasturtiums are a great plant to use around vegetables. The strong smell acts as a deterrent. As a decoy/sacrificial plant that will attract whitefly and keep them away from your veggies. It also attracts hoverflies-one of those beneficial insects in the garden – this one gobbles up aphids.

Nimble fingered grandchildren make wonderful nasturtium seed pickers!

A LITTLE STORY: I have eight grandchildren and bless the day that J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series – she is responsible for turning the older ones, and millions of other children on to reading. My lot often suddenly appear from the bushes in my garden, with cloaks flying and wands waving shouting Latin spells at each other. As their grandma is the resident garden witch, they naturally come to me for new spells. This is where the good old nasturtium comes in. As I have mentioned, its name come from the Latin nasus (nose) tortus (to twist) for the peppery smell that comes up when you tread on it – and a twisted nose is a fabulous spell to cast on anyone, don’t you think?

RECIPES FOR PICKLED NASTURTIUM SEEDS

Tuna and lemon pasta

OTHER EASY PICKLES FROM THE GARDEN

Pickled dill cucumbers

(Visited 55 times, 1 visits today)

7 Comments

Diane Hart on July 20, 2013 at 7:21 am

Hi Carol, I use them in cooking in exactly the same way that I would use capers – in pasta, Greek salads and chopped up in a homemade mayonnaise as a sauce for fish (like tartare). If you look at the photo above, the seed is quite large, but it breaks up into three pieces when you pickle it. I hope this is helpful. Di
Carol Singer on July 20, 2013 at 3:57 am

I am curious about the pickled nasturtium seeds, and wondering what you like to serve them with? I have always put off trying this, as ours tend to be so large. Thanks, Carol
Anonymous on December 7, 2012 at 1:30 am

Thank you Amber. Wonderful that cyber space can connect us up so quickly and share such wonderful information. What is the FarmMade community all about. I had a quick look at your facebook site – are you in Maine, and is any of my gardening info. relevant for you too? Kindly Diane
Amber at FarmMade.com on December 5, 2012 at 8:06 pm

Hello Diane! We love this blog post you wrote about Nasturtiums so much so that we shared it with the FarmMade community today.

We wanted to let you know where we posted it so here's the link:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=466996420005022&set=a.466979720006692.91591.187429304628403&type=3&theater

Hope you'll stop by our blog sometime, too. We share inspiring stories, farmer made wares, recipes and more to inspire everyone to join us as we celebrate and preserve the farm way of life through farms, food, land, and time-honored traditions.

LOVE your blog! Thank you for all you do!

Amber & The FarmMade Team
Alison Sampson on November 8, 2012 at 11:58 pm

Was looking at the nasturtiums and wondering how to pickle the seeds – thanks for the suggestion! alison
Anonymous on September 30, 2012 at 3:11 am

I would suggest that they are probably too 'peppery'. Di
Anonymous on September 29, 2012 at 5:04 pm

We can't compete with the caterpillars, but they don't eat the seeds. I wonder why?