Winter Foraging: Dad’s Simple Stinging Nettle Soup

I vividly remember the day that Dad came through the door after his walk with the dogs, and in his hand was a bunch of stinging nettles. He said that while the dogs were having their swim in the pond at the bottom of the front field, he thought that he would harvest some of the nettles that surrounded it to make something from what is often cursed at. Stinging nettles have been an ongoing feature in our family since Henry decided to ride his bike full-pelt down the country road at the first house we lived at when we moved to France - and inevitably ended up falling off it and rolled down a bank covered in nettles, covering his body with stings in the process. I now wonder with hindsight if it had something to do with seeking revenge for Henry’s sake, but I guess I’ll never know.

He always loved to think outside of the box (with help from Francoise Murat) and to make things out of the ordinary, so for him, nettles were one of those things. Despite not being much of a cook back in the day, he did rustle up some signature dishes - stinging nettle soup being one of them. I love the fact that nettles can be foraged from wherever, and uses nature’s produce that we would usually just overlook.

He also liked to keep things simple, which I believe helps to bring out the taste of the nettle, and to really put it at the forefront of the soup. All you need is a big bunch of nettles from anywhere you can find them (don’t forget gloves!),, and onion, some stock and maybe a bit of cream to swirl on top.

Ingredients:

A knob of butter

1 onion, finely chopped

Around 500g of nettles, washed

500ml of vegetable stock

Some cream to top

Salt and pepper

The recipe is extremely straight-forward and in all honesty, you could probably guess it. You can also add other things like leeks, garlic, carrots, potatoes etc. which will add more flavour, but the beauty of this recipe is its simplicity.

Melt the knob of butter in a pan and fry off the onion until translucent.
Add the stinging nettles into the pan to wilt for a few minutes, then add the stock, some salt and pepper and let boil until the flavours have combined.
Simply blend until smooth, and serve in your bowl of choice with a swirl of double cream, or alternatively, a swirl of olive oil.
Crack some salt and black pepper on top to season.
Enjoy!

Photo credit to Phil Voice himself.

Original post: https://www.landscapejuice.com/2009/05/how-to-make-wild-nettle-soup.html

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