Before we dive deeper, let’s give a big thanks to Closet Cooking for today’s recipe. I was researching forever what to do with these things and the site helped a bunch to learn how to handle fiddleheads. Go check it out to see some other cool things.
Fiddleheads had become such an overwhelming thought to tackle that I had to go back to the kitchen I learned to cook in to feel like I could get a hold on these. That, and I also thought my mom has prettier dishes, but also a large selection of tools that I thought would be nice to have around, just in case.
So, for starters, you need clean these up like you would rinse off rice. By the way, if you have never rinsed your white rice you are really missing out. You put the fiddleheads in water and swirl them and all kinds of little bits and leaves come off in the water.
I had to do that several times to get them as clean as possible without destroying the lovely little curls. Once you rinsed, swished and repeated until they are shiny new, you have to blanch them, which the recipe said will take out the bitterness they have in them. I wish blanching worked on humans, but alas.
I took a small nibble though raw and they didn’t taste bad, or necessarily have one. I wasn’t about to put my digestive health on the line to see what they tasted like raw just in case.
Anyway, this tart required a few of my favorite things combined in one, but especially another green vegetable that I will always want in my life.
Green onions after a nice sauté make the world go round. This was also a first for working with phyllo/filo dough and when the recipe called for three sheets I couldn’t help but notice that there were two rolls in the box. “Dang,” I thought to myself, “I’ll have to buy two boxes to have enough sheets.” Fun fact, each rolls contains around forty sheets of dough. Oops.
Just looked how it turned out though, like a weird little fancy pizza but cover anything in cheese with bread underneath and you have me.
You have probably noticed I haven’t really painted a full picture of these yet. I’m showing you pictures and talking my experience with them, but it is only because I want you to enjoy how nice they look. Because when I started to blanching process it smelled like I was boiling fish or something. It did not smell pleasant at all. After the boil the water was still crazy nasty dirty so that did not exactly get me wanting to shovel fiddleheads down.
But this little tart? Covered in cheese with onions perched on crispy phyllo dough? Give me more. The fiddleheads, when combined with other elements I will admit, tasted like a light version of asparagus, texture and all. Not a strong taste, but a present one. The tart itself is fantastic and everyone should make more. You may see more new vegetables to try on about fifty more sheets that I have left in my freezer so stay tuned to see what we do with these next!
Try 52 
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