A little over a week ago, inspired by an interesting talk on weeds at the Garden Club of Los Altos, I kept some of the burr medic (Medicago polymorpha) I pulled from a school garden and brought it home to cook.
Unlike small melilot (Melilotus indicus), which I also tried recently, burr medic grows low to the ground so I was extra paranoid about picking up parasites from it. So, I tried to be extra cautious washing it thoroughly and definitely overcooked it. (So far, I’ve not gotten sick from it as far as I can tell.)
I stir fried it with olive oil and nothing else, wanting to see what it tastes like alone.
Despite being overcooked, it had a pretty pleasant taste, at least initially — basically fried starch, somewhat like a thin slice of potato. The stems were too tough to fully chew, maybe due to the plants being too old (they were almost all already starting to set seed); I have a feeling the stems also contributed to a lingering grassy aftertaste. Probably I should have just cooked the leaves alone.
I’m planning to pull out some more burr medic today, but I think I’ll wait to try eating it again till next year, when there will be younger, tenderer plants available.
In the meantime, the speaker from the garden club shared a couple more resources on burr medic: Garden Word of the Day: burclover and sauteed edible clover (caotou, 草头).
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