Saturday 1 May 2010

Nettle soup recipe


This is a bright-green and hence quite unexpectedly delicious soup. Truly foraged, nettle-only. Did I say unexpectedly delicious? Of course you can add potatoes and onions to thicken it up once they too are in season. But for the moment, the seed onions are in a bag in the hallway, and the first early potato plant only just poked out the ground today. So nettle-only it is.

Ingredients (highly approximate!):
  • 400g (half a plastic bag) of freshly foraged nettle leaves (uncompressed). Pick only the four to six leaves at the top of the plant, as these are tender.
  • 1-2 cups of water
  • 4-6 teaspoons of Swiss vegetable bouillon powder
  • 2 teaspoons of minced / crushed garlic
  • Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
  1. Put the water in a pan and put on the heat.
  2. Wash the nettles. Carefully! (reminds me of the joke: how to hedgehogs make love? - carefully!)
  3. Once the water is boiled, add the nettles. Don't be shocked if it looks like there are far too many for the amount of water, as they'll reduce down a treat.
  4. Boil until the nettle leaves are nice and soft, then blend using a hand blender.
  5. Add the bouillon, garlic and salt and pepper to taste.
  6. Serve and enjoy!
Oh, and here's a picture of the current state of our kitchen table...

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