If life gives you nettles, make nettle soup. Delicious, nutritious and you can pick nettles from almost anywhere in Britain pretty much all year round.Just try to pick them as far from the road as possible and go for the youngest brightest looking leaves. Oh and use gloves.
Cook time : 1 hour 30 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 bag nettles
- 1 large brown onion, roughly chopped
- 1 clove garlic, roughly chopped
- 1 large carrot, roughly chopped
- 2 stalks celery, roughly chopped
- 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock made with 1 cube
- 3 tbsp cooked rice optional
- 2 tbsp thick cream
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
Instructions
- Chop up the onion, carrot, celery and garlic into small pieces. Melt the butter in a pot over medium heat and sweat off what you've just chopped. Let it all soften up but not brown.
- Add the stock.
- To prepare the nettles separate all the leaves and wash ( its easier if you just pick the leaves in the first place ) Throw the leaves into the pot as well.
- Boil everything up and then simmer for around 10 minutes.
- Season with salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.
- Optionally add around 3 tablespoons of rice.
- Use a stick blender to zap everything until its smooth. If you don't have a stick blender throw everything into a food blender, you may need to do this in batches.
- Throw it back into the pot and add a couple of tablespoons of cream.
- You can heat it gently for a few minutes but be careful not to boil it. Hmm, earthy goodness …