Spruce Tip Dip

Spruce trips are the tender, growth on spruce trees. Around here, they appear in mid-May. Take a look at your nearest spruce tree and you’ll notice vibrant, lime green shoots at the ends and along the sides of the branches. A closer look reveals these tips are soft and succulent. Take a nibble and if you have a particularly tasty tree you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the bright, zesty, lemony flavour.

Spruce tips, source: Wikipedia

I look forward to spruce tips and their citrusy flavour every spring. I’ve made syrup with them, infused them into salt and chopped them finely to add to salads. Some people pickle them. This year my favourite thing to do is blend them to use as a dip, dressing and sauce for fish.
Here’s what I do.
Gather a few handfuls of spruce tips and chop finely.

(A note on harvesting spruce tips: See the first picture of spruce tips at the top of the post? Notice how there are three tips growing at the end of the branch?  The centre tip is the growing tip, or the apical meristem.  Don’t harvest those growing tips of spruces, because that stunts the growth of the tree, something we want to avoid.  You can harvest the side tips, but not the centre, apical meristem, k?  Awesome!  Also, be sure to  taste test each new tree you gather from.  Some tips are more bitter or astringent than others.  Go for the really juicy, tart, lemony ones for the best results.)
Once you’ve chopped your spruce tips up, add them to a blender or food processor with a good quality oil (I used EVOO).  Salt and pepper to taste, maybe some garlic if you like, though I didn’t use any.  Next, add a splash of good quality vinegar.  I used some dandelion infused, organic apple cider vinegar and included a couple of spoonfuls of the dandelion flowers.

Whir it all up, till it is well blended and smooth.

Now go forth and explore a whole new world of taste sensations!  I served this to folks on my last walk with endive leaves and the hearts of Romaine lettuce.  The mildly bitter endive and sweet Romaine hearts married well with the zesty, acidic dip.

It also is delicious as a salad dressing or served with fish. I think it would go great with chicken. Basically, use this in any savoury dish where you would use lemon.  Play around and experiment!
But hurry. Most of the spruce tips around here are already too mature and tough to harvest and the window is quickly closing on the ones that are still at the right stage. Don’t worry if you miss them this year though. They’ll be back again next spring and I’m already looking forward to it!