hi i'm shelly young owner of the
chopping block and today i'm going to
teach you how to clean
leaks and wild leaks or
ramps i certainly have to mention that
being a chicago-based business
we're named after this particular onion
or wild leek
also called a ramp they grow wild and
prolific in the area
so both of these tend to be quite
dirty and people struggle with how to
clean them so i want to show you how to
do that today
so leeks you're going to find these in
most grocery stores these days
there's a white part in green part
generally we do not eat the green part
and sometimes you'll see little hairs if
you will on the end of this per the root
of the leek those i would cut off and
discard
not much there today but i'm still going
to cut that off
and i'm going to just cut this off if
you're making stock
roasting a chicken something like that
we can put that leak right in there
so i'm going to show you two ways to
clean the leek
the first one is very simple if i want
to
dice or slice a leak i will simply go
through
and do that keep in mind these can be
very
dirty so as you're doing this you may
see a lot of dirt
fall onto your cutting board
don't worry about that but make sure you
clean your cutting board off before you
cut something else
so i'm going to take these i'm going to
put them into a bowl
just like this and we're going to cover
them in water
we're going to let that sit the dirt
will fall to the bottom
the clean leaks will rise to the top
so if i want to leave my leak
in a larger piece perhaps i want to
braise the leek or
roast it or something like that what
i'll do
then is i leave it
in half like i just cut it in half like
this and i'll take this
to the sink and try to keep it together
and just run cold water and clean in
between these
all these pieces so you can see the
ramps
look very similar to a leak now that you
see them and this root
in here very dirty we want to just cut
that off
and really what you need to do then is
just check the leaves because we
we're going to eat the leaves in this
case unlike the other leek
the domestically we're going to wild
leeks
we can eat the leaves so i just want to
make sure that the leaves look
look really good and even this one i can
use that
all of these really the leaves oh here's
one
in this case it happens frequently that
the leaves are discolored or brown
i'm going to take that off this one
doesn't look so hot either if you can
use a portion of it
use it
now we're going to take the leaks
depending on or the wild leeks or the
ramps
depending on what you want to do with
these if i'm making a risotto this would
be wonderful in a risotto
just chop them up in you know an inch or
two pieces you can also saute them whole
if you like the look of that it's really
beautiful and people frequently saute
them whole as well
but as i'm whether i'm leaving them
whole or i'm
chopping them i'm going to then submerge
them in cold water
just like our other leeks we let the
dirt fall to the bottom
and the wild leeks will float to the top
so my leeks these ones are pretty clean
so didn't take very long at all to soak
them but what i want to just do
is be careful leave the dirt at the
bottom pull my
dice leaks off of the top just like so
our ramps have been soaking i'm just
going to pull them out again
be careful to leave the dirt at the
bottom you don't want to stir that up
and that is how you clean wild leeks and
leeks