Calendar August 2015: Red Clover

August: Red Clover

Scented pretty flower in the midsummer meadows

(Trifolium pratense, Order: Fabales, Family: Fabaceae, Genus: Trifolium )

In the middle of August the meadows in the midsummer has still colourful wild flowers but there is a subtle autumnal feeling.  The colour is turning a little bit hazy as the grasses are turning yellow. The seeds of the carrot family such as hemlock, wild carrot, wild parsnip etc. are becoming brown or yellow.

Among the other wild plants, red clover is flowering here and there in the meadows to attract its benefactor like bees, butterflies and other insects throughout the summer.

Red clover has been so common as well as white clover that almost everyone knows this pretty flower, but we (at least I) know very little about it.

The flowerhead is consisted with a lot of slightly purplish pink flowers although it is called 'red' clover.  Individual flower is a small version of pea's one.

The leaves are trifoliate and oval, and each leaf has a white crescent-shaped mark.  White clover has also trifoliate leaves with white crescent-shaped mark, but the leaves are round.

Red clover, like other pea family, is nitrogen fixing and used as green manure crop for enriching the soil  in the cultivated lands.  

These features are well-known, but I didn't know their flowers and leaves are both edible. (Cultivated sweet pea's flower is poisonous.)  Though, they are the favourite forage for the cattle.  Why not human can eat them?

According to 'The Hedgerow Handbook' (by Adele Nozendar, Square Peg, 2012), flower heads can be used in salads.  It sounds normal, like using other edible flowers for salads.  But I cannot imagine how it looks and tastes when the flower (divided into individual flower with a little sugar and salt) is put into a cooked rice.  I took a flowerhead of red clover in one warm evening in a meadow, and suck its nectar.  The subtle sweet taste and aroma came into my mouth.  So, the flower rice probably has a delicate pleasant fragrance.  It gets on with grilled meat, I imagine.

Leaves can be cooked with  garlic and onion.  Pea shoots has become popular.  I imagine clover leaves might taste like the pea shoots.

Also there are recipes in the book, 'Red Clover Lemonade' and 'Redo Clover Almond Biscuits'.  Both recipes use generous amount of flowers.  But you can easily collect them for free from the meadows.  (I attach the two recipes at the end of this blog.)

An interesting finding of this section in this book is about a two-leafed clover.  Well, it doesn't have to be red clover, but also white clover.  Adele Nozendar cited from an old tradition. that a two-leafed clover is connected with marriage when an unmarried girl find a two-leafed red clover.  Take it home and after that when she see a man, she will marry the man.  How romantic it would be!

(Added on 23. 8.2015)

I found a poet of the red clover fairy on Cecily Mary Barker's The Complete Book of The Flower Fairies (Edition 2002, Warne).

The Song of The Red Clover Fairy

The Fairy:

O, what a great big bee

Has come to find my honey.

He's come to find my honey.

O, what a great big bee!

The Bee:

O, what a great big Clover!

I'll search it well, all over,

And gather all its honey.

O, what a great big Clover!

A red curly haired little girl with hazy pink dress and scarf on a leaf is looking curiously at a bumblebee collecting the nectar (Barker used 'honey', but technically nectar is right.  Honey is the processed product of nectar by honeybees) of red clover.  

***** Recipes from Adele Nozendar's 'The Hedgerow Handbook' *****

Red Clover Lemonade:

Makes approx. 1 litre

750g fresh red clover, plus extra to garnish

500ml water

500g honey (or sugar)

Juice of 2 lemons

1. Simmer the clover blossoms in the water, in a covered pan, for to 10 minutes. No need to boil.  Then add the honey or sugar and stir until it's dissolved.

2. Cover and let the mixture steep and cool for several hours or overnight.  Steeping makes the infusion strong, increasing the potency of the calcium and other nutrients in the clover.

3.  Add the lemon juice and chill in the fridge.

4. Strain, then serve poured into tall glasses over ice, garnished with a chunk of lemon and a couple of clover flowers.

Red Clover Almond Biscuits

Makes Approx. 25 biscuits

380g wholemeal flour

3tsp baking powder

100g almonds

100g butter

2 eggs

120ml buttermilk

1/4tsp almond extract

287g red clover flowers, plucked out of the flower head

1. Preheat oven to 230 C/gas mark 8.

2. Whizz the flour, baking powder and almonds in a food processor until everything is finely chopped.

3. Add the butter and pulse until you have a crumbly texture.

4.  Add the eggs, buttermilk, almond extract and the red clover flowers.

5. Whizz once more until you have a lump of dough.

6. Roll out the dough (no too thin) on a lightly floured work surface.

7. Cut into 5cm squares. Transfer to an ungreased baking tray and bake for 10-15minutes, or until the biscuits are golden brown.