The Benefits of Borage

One of Gael Glen Farm's garden experiments in 2020 is growing the herb borage. 

I attended a talk last year about interesting plants to include in a kitchen garden and the speaker mentioned borage as an underrated but very worthwhile addition.  Apparently it is excellent for pollinators (like our honey bees), it deters the incredibly disgusting tomato horn worm and the cabbage moth (good, good...), its leaves taste like cucumber (nothing wrong with that) and its flowers are edible and can be used to flavour vinegar and dye it blue (seriously cool).  It sounds like a dream vegetable, right?

What the speaker failed to mention is that borage leaves are seriously spiky - they have rough prickles all over them!

Eating a borage leaf raw is the equivalent texture of eating a cat's tongue (not that I have but you know what I mean).  Luckily, all you have to do is sauté or steam the borage leaves and the displeasing texture disappears completely. 

We chopped the borage leaves finely.

Then we steamed them with spinach and chinese cabbage leaves.

The steamed borage leaves tasted almost exactly like spinach.  It was delicious!

We had it as a side to our pasta for dinner tonight and I did not even need to bribe the boys with my homemade raspberry rhubarb mint cobbler to eat their veggies.

They devoured their greens all on their own!

So, while I was initially unsure about this herb, after having it for supper a few times now (blended in soup, sautéd and steamed), I am sold.  Borage really is a game changer.  I cannot wait to collect more leaves to eat and more blossoms to see if they really do dye my vinegar blue!