Jiving with Chives

The other day I had a discussion at my community garden plot on humble Chive. You know that innocuous, tough, grass looking, purple flower and interesting herd. Our garden plots have a lot of chives, almost to the point of weeds depending where you go. The guy next to me is using his plot to do some sort of garden scape that relies heavily on chives. He kind of has a veld of chives… Anyway, he is nice enough to let me pick some of the blooms in spring, and here we get to the beginning of the list of uses of chives that apparently only I have put together.

Let me start at the beginning, I use chives in cream cheese or on the rare occasion when I actually eat cottage cheese. You know just mix some pepper, salt, a pinch of sugar and some chives to taste into the dairy; let sit for a half hour if you have the time & enjoy. Also, I use chives on baked and mashed potatoes. I used to chop chives up with a knife, but now I just use my kitchen sheers to cut them into the perfect length.

Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) are great on salads and mixed into vinaigrette dressings. And when available I used the fresh blooms of chives in salads they add a lot of color, and some light chive flavor. I’m always looking for new flowers to eat in salads, so add chive blooms to the list of nastrums, roses, and borage blooms you can eat on you greens. And the blooms can be used in one other fun way; in vinegar. Use an old Patron tequila bottle (large opening and ability to cork it is why I like the bottle) stuff about two dozen freshly open blooms into the bottle and add some nice white vinegar. In about 15 minutes you’ll see some of the color of the blooms leaking into the vinegar; let this sit in the sunny widows for 2 weeks to age & flavor the vinegar. The vinegar has nice onion flavor and a nice reddish color. Great for cooking or making more vinaigrette.

I usually keep the chive plant bloom-free, because the stalks get harder and I have been told the chives get more bitter. However waste is not good so before the blooms open I pick all the budding stalks, and stir fry them in oil and splash them with sherry or sake before I serve them. They are great on top of meat or another veggie. This is just like serving Chinese onions which are a larger Allium.