Everybody knows the Burdock because it has
sticky seeds that remain attached to
the clothes.
The purple flowers are beautiful and resemble
those of thistles. They attract many bees
and butterflies.
The stem is reddish, and hollow.
The leaves have a white underside.
Japanese burdock or gobo
The gobo is the same kind of root as burdock.
In Asia it is a populair dish. It is also
called Japanese burdock or Japanese salsify,
(Arctium lappa). The roots are longer
the those of burdock, they measure up
to one meter.
The cut figures of bardock and gobo.
The popularity of gobo is clearly on the rise.
Kinpira Gobo is a recipe where the gobo is cut
in juliennes (so not in slices).
one gobo
1 large wintercarrot
3 tablespoons sugar
Sweet soy sauce sesame
sesame oil
Take the gobo and brush it clean, under running water.
Clean the wintercarrot, cut both in jullienes,
cook 10 minutes, fry them together in sesame oil and
add soy sauce, sprinkle with sesame seeds, ready.
You can add parsnip and yellow colored winter carrot, or spice
it with Shichimi togarashi, Japanese7-spices mix,
Burdock in the vegetable garden
Sow can be done starting from March. Bury the
seeds under a thin layer of sand.
Use hilling as the roots are very long and
can otherwise not be harvested without breaking.
Hilling, earthing up or ridging
is the technique in agriculture
of piling soil up around the base of a plant.
Harvest the burdock in the first year of growth.
Not the next year: The plant will have flower
stems and gray leaves.
Remove these carrots from the ground only then when
needed in the autumn, and not longer
than five months after sowing, because the
roots will become woody. For this reason, burdock
is lately sown so that it will be a winter vegetable.
gobo or burdock cleaning
The skin of the root must be removed,
The best way is scrubbing with a copper scouring pad.
Do not peel. The taste is under the skin! The shell
is non-toxic, scrubbing under running
water is even better.
Another common method is with a
peeler, an asparagus peeler. But then a lot of
taste is lost.
Then cut the root into slices, and put them under
water, otherwise they start to discolor brown.
burdock recipes
Burdock frying
Fried burdock root is delicious, and looks and
taste like chips, cut the carrot into thin cleaned
slices and fry them in oil for 2 minutes
Burdock cooking
Cut burdock into thin, round slices.
Let them twenty to thirty minutes simmer.
1 kilo of potatoes,
one pound burdock
one pound sprouts
Boil the potatoes about 10 minutes.
Clean the burdock, do not forget to keep
burdock under water before cooking.
Cook the sliced burdock and sprouts
10 minutes , mix everything together,
add a little butter or milk.
The roots of burdock contain much inulin,
Some sources speak of 45%, but less
is more likely.
Inulin
Inulin can be found in the roots of many plants,
and has some interresings features. Inulin is used
to replace sugar, fat, and flour but contains very
calories in comparison with fat. It doesn't raise
bloodsugar making it a good addition in the diet
of diabetics. Last but not leat inulin is
synthesized into butyric acid an inhabitor of
tumor growth. Inulin is produced from the roots
of chopped cichory-roots , and extracted by
adding hot water. After evaporation the inulin
remains in almost pure form. Cichory contain 15%
inulin. These plants have inulin in there roots; cichory Jerusalem artichoke
dahlia
black salsify artichoke
The seeds remain until the end of the spring
attached to the plants and are are carried by people
sticking to theire cloths, or the furs of animals,
like sheeps or goats or the tail of a cow.
Klis is a beautiful plant for the garden.
The plant attract a clouds of bees, but also
many butterflies.
burdock and parsley
Burs.
These seeds are spread by animals (and humans), they stick
to tails of horses and cows , the fur of rabits or the wings of birds:
It is a form of epichory: the spread of the seed from plants with
low investment of energy in the seed. Have a look at these examples:
1 burdock (Arctium sp.)
2 wood forgetmenot (Myosotis)
3 Cleavers (Gallium aparine)
4 avens (Geum urbanum) 5 alfalfa (Medicago)
6 beggarticks or stickseeds (Bidens)
7 common agrimony or sticklewort (agrimonia eupatoria)
8 sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum)
9 Bidi-bidi (Acaenae novae), new Zealand
10 common ragweed (Ambrosia artimisiifolia)
11 enchanter's nightshad (Circaea lutetiana)
12 sweet cicely( Osmorhiza) USA
13 american stickseed (Hackelia deflexa ) USA
The seeds remain until the end of the spring 
