Coming into season between late spring and early summer, finding ramps at your local farmers’ market is sort of like hitting the hipster jackpot. The tiny onions look sort of like a cross between a garlic clove and a leek, with a taste that’s thereabouts and can be used similarly in cooking.
If you’re not one for foraging, though, you’re in luck. Westchester’s home to countless talented chefs, and they’re preparing a few ramp dishes that you can try yourself if you’re feeling the spirit of the season.
Harper’s on Main
92 Main St, Dobbs Ferry
914.693.2306
Chef Chris Vergara is a bit of a do-it-yourselfer, foraging on your behalf for a simple dish of spaghetti with Calabrian chilis, bottarga, and breadcrumbs, topped with the freshest of ramps. It’s definitely a comfort dish, so order some takeout and settle in with a good family flick and a bottle of wine and call it a night.
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L’Inizio
698 Saw Mill River Rd, Ardsley
914.693.5400
Looking for something a bit bigger? Ardsley’s L’Inizio has added a new flat iron steak to their to-go menu, paired with summer squash, peas and potatoes with pepitas and topped with a verdant ramp chimichurri.
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The Rare Bit
23 Cedar St, Dobbs Ferry
914.693.8000
As usually, The Rare Bit is in rare form, offering ramps two ways this season: for takeout, the house is preparing to launch an entrée of mushroom gnocchi with fresh ramp pesto as a new menu addition. Meanwhile, budding home chefs can pick up $10 jars of The Rare Bit’s canned sauces and pickles, now including pickled ramps!
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Whiskey River
38 N Division St, Peekskill
914.293.7750
Chef Ashley Lurie has been integrating ramps into one of her most popular sandwiches in a particularly unique way: pickling. Whiskey River’s “Fo’ Schnitzel” sandwich features breaded and fried spiced pork schnitzel on a toasted hoagie roll with a homemade Napa cabbage-and-apple slaw that gets a full, tangy kick from a creamy pickled ramp dressing.
X2O
71 Water Grant St, Yonkers
914.965.1111
Chef Peter Kelly is swapping out his menu’s regular wild mushroom risotto for a more delicate spring variant. Substituting fresh ramps for the usual green onions/scallions, Kelly’s spring ramp risotto is served with grilled shrimp and a parmesan cookie.
Looking to try something fun at home? Pick a few wild ramps and follow along as Chef Andy Nusser of Westport’s Tarry Lodge teaches us how to make burrata with grilled ramps way back for our 2013 Westchester Magazine Wine & Food Fest!
